The Dragon and the Dark
by Yuhi Sakura
Summary: Evil is rising from an unnatural chasm in the earth and five adventurers, thrown together by Heaven and Hell alike, are going to have to learn a lot about themselves, and each other, if they hope to stop it.
1. Chapter 1

_**Chapter One: The Village of the Damned**_

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own D and D. I'm just having a lot of fun with it and wanted to put our current campaign out there. It's been a lot of fun!**

The forest in front of him was beginning to thin, and to his great relief, he could see the very outskirts of a small village breaking the line of trees. He peered behind him at this trailing companion, tried hard not to wish for another, and turned his gaze skyward, looking, perhaps, for some sign of Ehlonna. When sky yielded nothing but the beautiful calm, he reminded himself that his goddess, however mysterious her ways, was with him.

He began walking.

* * *

She moved quietly, her ears open to the eerie quiet of the forest around her. She had been walking for days, and hadn't heard the cry of a kite or the desperate skitter of a hare in all that time. She did, however, sense something the shadows.

Perhaps, she thought to herself, that was simply her fate now...

She paused for a moment in the thicket of trees before they began to thin. The village was small, no more than a few dozen odd people, but clearly distressed: Around the outer limits was a pathetic attempt at a bramble wall.

Her eyes narrowed as she weighed her options: her Master had already ordered her to retrieve an item of value, and she was running short on supplies. With nothing to hunt, she would be forced to stop soon, and with no guarantee of how soon, or far, another village was...

She sighed as she stepped down and walked forward.

* * *

The Dwarf peered into the town, and waddled past a group of talking women. He had noted the bramble wall with some amount of curiosity and had been looking for the elusive Sheriff when three other figures approached the limits of the village.

He walked towards the Eastern wall, where a proud Dwarf was standing surveying, without much hope in his eyes, the tangle of bramble surrounding his modest village.

"Hail!" He called as he approached.

"Hello, Traveler. How can I help you?"

"Could you tell me what's going on here? I might be able to help."

"And I would accept your offer if I could." The Sheriff responded, "But we do not know ourselves the cause of our troubles."

"What's happening?"

"Late at night, they come. They've already taken our children, our cattle...I fear that we will be next."

"What are 'they'?"

"They scurry like spiders in the dark, but we have not seen their forms."

"When were you last attacked?"

"Last night. A guest at the tavern was dragged away. We have yet to find his body."

The Dwarf nodded, hefted his ax, and said, "Show me where this tavern is."

* * *

Phadian watched Matalian shuffled into a small alley off the main road and circled his pack several times before settling himself on his haunches and beginning the tedious process of undoing the braiding of his hair, adjusting his ornaments, and plaiting it again. He knew better than to question the ritual or attempt to draw his friend from his corner.

"Excuse me!" He called as a young man, his arms loaded with twigs and dry brush, ran by.

"Be quick, Sir!" The young man replied peevishly.

"Perhaps you could tell me where the temple is? I intend to seek counsel with Elhonna." Phadian responded.

The young man laughed bitterly, "There are no gods here. Or their earthly vessels."

"What do you mean?"

"We hung the priests days ago. If I were you, I would forget your goddess. She does not exist here."

"Elhonna is everywhere!" Phadian exclaimed, aghast, "She is in the wind and the trees, the earth and the water."

"Are you a priest?" The young man's eyes flashed with murderous intent.

The voice the broke the tension was soft and feminine, but rung with an undercurrent of strength.

"Pardon my friend here, Sir. He meant no offense."

The young woman stepped forward as she drew her hood back to reveal fiery red hair, teal eyes, and tapering ears.

"I would watch your tongue if I were you." The young man snapped at the priest as he hurried away.

"Thank you for your assistance. I am-" Phadian began, only to be cut off by her remark,

"I would listen to the young man. Your bitch of a goddess hasn't done anyone any good in quite some time."

From the corner of the alley a figure rose, his fists pounding against his chest as he drew a weapon and charged.

Her eyes snapped up, her hand reaching for the dagger concealed by her cloak, and hissed, "Call your dog off unless you want his head separated from his shoulders."

Phadian reeled back, yelling, "Matalian, no!"

The man snorted, grunted, and tried to get past the priest. His eyes were set on the young woman, his knuckles blanched from the pressure of his grip on his mace. She met his steely gaze, stepping around to the back of the priest. If need be, she would pull him down with her dagger at his throat.

Phadian threw himself to the left, his arms out wide as he broke Matalian's stare, shouting, "Stop! She's not a threat! Enough, Matalian!"

Matalian grunted, dropped to his knuckles, snorted and stalked back to his corner.

Phadian turned on his heel, "I'm very sorry about-"

"Keep your dog on a short leash. Next time, I'll cut his throat." She said simply as she drew her cloak over her hip and walked into the village.

* * *

The woman wasn't sure what to expect when she walked into the bar just as the tender was kicking the ass of a man, who, by all appearances, had simply asked for a beer. She was a huge woman, wider than she was tall, with closely cropped hair and a foul attitude. But, just like that, the bartender smiled at her, tossed the man aside bodily, and asked sweetly, "What can I get you, sweetie?"

"What have you got?"

"For you," The bartender's eyes raked her body, "Anything. First drink on the house."

The Ranger shrugged internally, figured she'd ride it as far as she could, and smiled, "Give me your best."

The bartender smirked, turned, and poured a drink from a cedar keg and slid it to her as she said, "Let me know if you need anything, sweetie. I'm Hank."

Korra acknowledged the remark with a gentle nod as she brought the cup to her lips.

It was incredible mead, probably the best she ever had. Light, sweet, with the fragrance and taste of oranges...It was like drinking the sunset.

She was just about to speak up when the door swung open to reveal an worn man with blond hair. He walked forward, sat at the bar, and opened his mouth when Hank turned on him. With speed that belied her weight and girth, she seized him by the collar and dragged him up bodily, "What the fuck do you want?"

Korra's eyes narrowed and her lips pulled up, "He's with me, Hank. He was supposed to meet me here. Trade business, that's all. Do me a favor?"

Hank smiled back, her grip on the man's collar slackening, "Anything for you, darling."

"Get me friend some of your best."

Hank frowned, said nothing, and retrieved another glass before stalking off again as she snarled at Phadian, "Get the hell off of my bar!"

"Thanks." Phadian said simply as he sipped at the drink.

It was alright. A little bitter for his taste and made with relatively poor quality honey. The taste of oranges, however, helped break up the acridness.

"No problem." Korra responded without looking at him, "Her attitude is terrible, but if you're on her good side, you get to see some funny shit."

He took his drink and sat down at a table in the back. In the quiet of the bar, he heard some muttering about odd, dark things that came in the night, taking children and cattle and leaving nothing but scratches and blood behind. No one, however, had seen them...only heard a disturbing scuffle in the dark before it was broken by the screams of those being dragged into the dark.

He was deep in thought when the doors opened again to reveal a young woman with fiery hair.

From the front, Hank called back with a smile and a wink, "Come sit up here, honey. What can I get you?"

The young woman smiled as she walked across the room, sliding her hips up against the edge of the bar, and responding, "What do you offer?"

Hank smirked, laughing under her breath, "What are your tastes?"

"You're the professional here." The red-headed smirked alluringly. "Surprise me."

"How about some of our best? I'm sure my friend here," Hank motioned to Korra, "Can attest to it."

Korra laughed as she raised her glass, "It's some pretty good shit."

The young woman nodded, smiling at Hank, as she took a seat. Hank walked back over, leaning close as she passed her the glass, "Anything else, honey?"

"Well, actually, there is. I'm quite interested in what's happening outside."

"We prefer not to involve strangers in our affairs." Hank responded.

"We might be able to help." Korra broke in, leaning back in her chair.

"Aside from that," the young woman said as she stood up, her cape opening across her bust to reveal a tightly fitted leather corset, "I'm sure I can make it worth your while."

Hank's tongue flicked out to wet her lips and she stared for a long moment before responding, "Why don't we talk privately, Ms...?"

"Ruby, and I'm sure that privacy can be reserved for _other _affairs." The young woman smirked.

Hank laughed uproariously before nodding, "What would you like to know?"

"What's going on here?" Korra asked, "The bramble wall outside?"

"Wish we could tell you, but we don't know ourselves. Late at night, when it's quiet, they come."

"They?" Korra asked.

"We don't know what they are. We can hear them skittering around outside...the scream...and in the morning we find the blood."

"Have you seen them? Could you describe them?" Korra asked.

"No." Hank replied with a shrug, "I've only heard them. Last night, they were scurrying in the bar."

Ruby sensed behind the lie, opened her mouth to pry more, and was cut off by a righteous cry from the back of the bar.

"Perhaps I might be of assistance. I am a priest of Ehlonna and would like to offer my services."

"Fool!" Ruby hissed under her breath as the bar came alive.

She and Korra rose at the same time, their weapons drawn as a group of men flanked the young priest.

"Would you like to see what we do to priests here, boy?" One man hissed, hauling him bodily from his chair.

"His corpse can rest with the others." Another smirked.

A third howled, "I'm going to flay you alive!"

Two grabbed Phadian's arms, dragging him by his shoulders and cloak, while a third bundled his legs under his arm. They hauled him up, and began walking towards the door.

Phadian cried out, punched blindly and struck home. The man flew off to the side, coming down hard on his knees as blood clouded his vision.

"Fucking bastard!" The third cursed, torquing the priest's legs painfully.

Ruby moved in, her dagger drawn and raised; in three steps, she was behind the man, her dagger buried deep in the back of his skull. She twisted hard, eased the body down, and kicked it off the blade as Korra came up behind her.

She swung low, knocking the third man to his knees. Phadian dropped heavily against the floor, cracking his ribs against the dirt and winding himself. He gasped out something as Korra moved in, taking her stance over him with her staff held high.

The door suddenly exploded in a shower of wooden splinters that was cut by an inhuman howl. Matalian roared, lifting his saber in one hand and his mace in the other. The unfortunate man bearing down on the fallen priest was caught between the two and pierced by the saber through the chest as he was nailed to the wall by the mace.

Blood showered Korra and she blindly stumbled back into the bar.

"HOLD!"

The dust was cut almost instantly by two small, squat figures. One wore a leather vest and a war hammer strapped to a thick belt. The second carried an ax hefted over his shoulder and was plated with armor.

"What the hell is this?" The first asked, flashing a primitive badge.

"They attacked first!" Korra announced with a sweep of her hand.

"They brought a priest to this town!" A civilian howled.

"We...were trying to...help." Phadian gasped.

"This village doesn't need your help!" The Sheriff growled.

"You're right," Ruby said simply, "Not when your own people can be counted among your enemies."

Korra's green gaze turned first to Ruby and then flashed to Hank.

Ruby lowered her dagger as she stared at Hank, "You saw something last night."

"Hank?" The Sheriff looked up, "Is this true?"

Hank threw her hands up defensively, "Hey, look, I don't know what I saw! It...it was impossible."

"What, _exactly_, did you see, Hank?" The Sheriff growled.

"It was...a shrub. I saw it walk over the counter and down one side of the bar. I blinked and it was gone. I swear!"

"By the looks of it," Phadian coughed as Matalian helped him to his feet, "You need help, Sheriff. Allow me to offer my assistance."

"And mine." Korra said, planting the base of her staff against her foot.

Ruby said nothing, but nodded at the Sheriff.

The Sheriff stared back, and laughed sarcastically, "You've just killed two good men."

"Then their blood price will be paid with our labors." Ruby replied.

The Sheriff's eyes narrowed, "If you mean to repay the cost of their lives, stand watch tonight and, in the morning, help us fortify our defenses."

The Sheriff turned to leave when Phadian cried out, "Wait! My brothers and sisters at the temple..."

"The temple is in West, though I would caution you against going there. You will not like what you find."

Phadian set his mouth in a grim line as he brushed himself off, picked up his bag, and made for the West.

"I'll follow the Dwarf." Korra said simply with a sigh as she walked out of the destroyed tavern.

Ruby followed her out, her eyes lingering for a moment on the entrance of the village longingly...And then she turned and walked West.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter Two: The Tide, Rising **_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own D and D. I'm just having a blast! **_

Phadian fell to the ground, tears in his eyes, reaching vainly for the rotting corpses as though he could coax life from them.

They had been ravaged, some torn limb from limb, others skinned alive, and had been left to hang by their necks next to the charred remains of the temple. Their religious vestments had been piled together and burned beside the bodies. That had been days ago...and now the birds and beetles were having their way with the bodies, pecking at eyes until they were black holes that stared back, writhing in the mouth so that it looked as though they were still screaming in their death throes...

"Ehlonna...I trust they are in your loving embrace now..." He said, clasping his hands, "And I pray for the strength to continue in their footsteps. I will honor your name, and their sacred duty."

He rose quickly, brushing off his knees and wiping his tears away. His eyes were resolute when he began cutting them down.

"What are you doing?" Ruby asked, torn between exasperation and pity.

"I'm going to bury them." Phadian replied simply. "It's the least they deserve for their holy service."

She watched as he pulled up a support pole from the rubble and began striking the hard packed earth. After a minutes of watching his slow, methodical mission, she pulled another one from the ground, and began helping him.

Hours passed and the day turned by quickly with little progress to show for their efforts. At some point, around noon while they had been resting, the Dwarf had come to survey the remains of the temple and, seeing their pathetic predicament, offered them his shovel.

They were exhausted by then, and even with the shovel, it was getting late, the sun dipping low in the West and bleeding the sky orange, before the last body was laid to rest.

The walked back to the inn together and met with Korra and the Dwarf.

Korra, it seemed, had spent her day arguing with the Dwarf over the best ways to use their limited resources. Seeing as the town had no stone and a quarry was at least two days' march North, it was impossible to build a better wall. The bramble, at the very least, had been built up enough to at least slow an enemy. It wouldn't stop even a weary man for long, but it would give them some small amount of time to rally a defense if something should come scurrying through the dark.

"Who cares to take watch?" The Sheriff finally asked.

Ruby glanced at him, felt a pang of remorse for his fallen men, and volunteered herself. Korra promptly responded that she would be the second volunteer for first watch. The Dwarf, having already reasoned his vision would be better suited to the dark of the wee hours, agreed to work with Matalian on the second shift. The third would be manned by the Phadian and the townfolk.

With the matter settled, Korra went off toward the North end of the village. She managed to find a small, abandoned building-there was no shortage of them-and perched herself outside of it. With her staff slung across her hips and her back to the wall, she felt relatively comfortable. It would be hard for an enemy to sneak up on her, and she had a good view of the remaining houses.

But as the night worn on, she found herself getting a little groggy. At some point, the jerk of her head as she fell asleep was all the kept her awake. She made the mistake of putting her head against the wall to her back in an attempt to shift herself, and was asleep almost instantly.

* * *

Ruby, who had found herself on the East corner of the village, had attempted at first to scale one of the buildings to get a better vantage point. The architecture, however, simply wouldn't hold even her weight. The rafters were rotting and she reasoned that even if she managed to get up there, the roof would probably cave in.

Sighing, she planted herself in the shadows of the village and sat quietly for a while. She wasn't sure when she started to feel the night wearing on, just that the weariness was, suddenly, at some point bone deep...And her eyes drifted down before she could stop them...

* * *

It was around midnight when the Dwarf rose and began rounding through the town. He had just started around the opposite side of the village when, in the distance through the dark night, he made out a small, huddled lump near one of the abandoned villages.

Hefting his ax, he crept closer, realizing with sudden clarity that it was Korra huddled against the building.

Or what wouldn't be Korra for much longer...

Growing from the ground and the side of the abandoned house and into Korra herself were a number of small, root-like vines. He could see them pulsing beneath her skin and watched as one wormed its way even deeper into her arm.

Gently, he took the ax and sawed away one of the vines.

Bright red blood trickled from it before the vine shriveled back, leaving a scar and a small wound in the skin; but even as he watched, another one wriggled up from the earth.

Reasoning he had no other choice, he cut her loose. Halfway through, she came to, screaming and clawing at him. A moment later, the last vine stripped loose from her, she fainted and fell forward.

He hefted her easily over his shoulder and carried her back to the tavern. She was laid out in short order across one of the rough wooden tables. Mog inspected her quickly, found her pulse was still strong, and made the decision to leave her there while he completed his rounds.

He ventured out again, securing the door as best he could before disappearing back into the darkness.

He completed his circle around the first half of the town and was just beginning to think the worst was already past them when he stumbled across another huddled figure.

Ruby was pinned against the house by the vines that were running underneath her the skin of her arms and legs.

Sighing, he leaned down close and began to cut them back. A moment later, she came to, a bloodcurdling scream coming from her, before she passed out against the building.

Mog hefted her, holding his ax in his free hand, and made the long walk back towards the tavern.

The Sheriff, who had been patrolling himself, had also worked his way back there and was waiting when Mog walked through the door.

"It does not seem your watch fared so well." He began wearily.

"Were any of yours taken?" Mog asked as he flipped Ruby onto a table.

"None that we know of." The Sheriff replied.

"I'm going to leave these two here and continue on my way."

"Very well." The Sheriff answered as he walked back out into the darkness.

* * *

The rest of the night dragged on with weary tension until it was broken by a single, sudden scuffle in the dark that Mog never managed to locate. But as the second hour of the morning wore on, Phadian failed to appear at the tavern for his watch.

Concerned, Mog tracked down the Sheriff and found the abandoned house Phadian had opted to stay in. He had told know one why, but Mog had a strong suspicion that, despite his dead brothers and sisters as a warning against gods and goddesses, he needed time and space to communicate with Ehlonna for the coming day.

When his pounding on the door failed to rouse Phadian, he kicked it in and walked in.

Even he, however, wasn't prepared for what he found in the center of the room: Laying on the dirt floor was a fleshy cocoon that pulsed eerily in the meager light. It was roughly the shape of a tall man, and a bit wider than the Dwarf's own shoulders.

He knelt down beside it and inspected the odd membrane; small, twisted...roots?..ran into the ground from the edges of it and flowed with what looked like...blood...

He gripped his ax close to the head and carefully peeled a corner of it up. Blood began to trickle out and he pulled it back further. To his disgust, he realized, as the membrane drew back, that it had taken half of the flesh from Phadian's face, chest, and arm.

Phadian's eyes flickered open for one horrible moment, dull with agony and disorientation, before the light died back and he slipped into the dark. Mog hesitated as he waited for the rise and fall of his chest to even out before he took his ax and cut him free.

As he finished cutting away the roots, he noticed the cocoon beginning to shrivel. The blood on the dirt floor had started to absorb in, and a number of small root fingers twisted in the gore.

He hauled the cleric up and walked out into the dawn.

* * *

Korra rose first, the light of the morning filtering through the wooden grates over the windows of the tavern rousing her. She inspected herself in the light, saw the odd scarring on her arms and felt the roughness of the back of her sore neck, and set her mouth in a grim line.

She was _pissed_, and whatever had done this to her was going to pay dearly.

She sat down at the table, crossed her legs, and thought back on the night as she rifled through her pack for an apple. The last thing she remembered clearly was how drowsy she was and then the murky memory of Mog standing over her.

She was still deep in thought when a small noise behind her startled her. She turned, and found it was Ruby, struggling to rise from the table.

Her arms, she noted, bore the same odd scarring and, if her torn pants were any indication, so did her legs.

"Good morning." Korra said flatly as she held up an apple, "Welcome back to the world of the living. Breakfast?"

Ruby caught the shiny red fruit in one hand and said with some amount of relief, "Good to be back."

"I don't know about you," Korra began, "But I'm ready to kick the ass of whatever the hell came scurrying through here last night."

Ruby nodded, biting into her apple as she took an inventory of herself. Her arms and legs were sore and stiff, but she would be able to manage. It was the fatigue that worried her more; but she didn't have the option of waiting for that to pass.

She ate quickly, changed her torn clothing, and secured her dagger to her waist.

It was right around that time that one of the townsfolk came to the tavern and, with a note of confusion, asked where Hank was.

Ruby stopped in her tracks, whispering under her breath as her eyes shot towards the side of the tavern where Hank's bedroom was, "That's a very good question..."

Her gaze met Korra's green gold stare and the Ranger nodded at her as she lifted her staff and crept forward.

Ruby pressed herself close to the wall and inched over, her dagger held firmly at her side. She tested the door handle, found it was unlocked, and motioned to Korra as she slipped inside.

The bed was empty, the blankets thrown to the floor. Beside them was a thick smear of blood against the floor and some odd scrabbling that led to a window that had been broken in.

"Do you think you can follow these?" Ruby asked as she leaned out the window.

"Leave it to me." Korra smirked as she jumped over the sill and landed softly against the dirt.

* * *

The tracks led through the back of the village, over the bramble wall, and into the brush. As they followed, the blood smears got smaller and smaller and the drag marks deeper. By the time they disappeared completely into a small cluster of bushes, Korra was certain that Hank was well past any help they might be able to offer.

"This is where it ends." Korra said, kneeling beside the cluster of bushes.

She was just reaching into them when she saw something odd about them: they seemed to pulse almost...red...through the veins of their leaves and the texture of the bark was strange...

She picked up her staff and prodded one gently.

The ground exploded into clods of earth and debris as the bushes literally came alive: They clawed their way up from the ground, sneering horribly at the two women.

Korra scrambled back, barely managing to find her feet just as Ruby pulled her dagger.

About chest high, they were nonetheless fierce looking for their talons and menacing grins.

"What are they?" She asked, hefting her staff up.

"I don't know." Ruby replied, "but I don't think they're in the mood to talk."

"Suits me just fine." Korra smiled as she lunged forward.

Her foot came down on a patch of gravel and she fell face forward. In an odd stroke of luck, she went down just as one of the creature's swung at her. It missed her narrowly and hissed as she slid past it.

"Damn it!" Ruby muttered as she brought her dagger down on top of one.

She hit, but it gave a wild shriek and lashed out, catching her under the ribs and flinging her to the ground.

The third charged her as Korra rose. She gave a shout of anger as she charged, her staff raised high, and slipped in a slick of bloody mud. She went down hard, knocking Ruby's attacker to the ground as she slammed into it.

Ruby came up fast, barely dodging the swipe of talons of the first as it lunged. She spun around hard, plunging her dagger deep in its back. It went down hard with a shriek and she swung herself over its corpse as the second came down on Korra.

Ruby slid in front of her, but misjudged the strike. It came under her dagger and lashed out, striking her in the arm and throwing her down.

Korra, finding her footing, leapt up at it and brought her staff down hard against its legs. It went flying with a shower of woody splinters and landed prone against the dirt.

"Fucking die!" Korra shouted as she swung the staff high and brought it down with crushing force against the third.

It exploded down the middle like dry firewood against an ax and collapsed to the ground.

Panting hard, Korra took a knee and sank back. Wiping the sweat from her eyes, she commented flatly, "That wasn't too hard..."

Rising, Ruby spotted an odd...cocoon in the ground. It had been somewhat unearthed when the creatures attacked, and she could see it pulsing in the sunlight.

Recognizing that they were in no condition to take another battle, she suggested finding the Dwarf. Korra shrugged noncommittally, but rose, gathered her items, and started walking back towards the town.

* * *

"You two look like hell." Mog said simply.

"Shut up." Korra replied with equal ease as she walked into the inn, supporting Ruby's injured side with her left arm.

"Found the priest." Mog said, motioning to a gory mess on the table.

It was clearly a man, but with his face and torso wrapped in bloody bandages, it was difficult to say if it was Phadian or not.

"What the hell happened to him?" Korra asked as she set Ruby down.

"He was cocooned by something." Mog said.

"Cocooned?" Korra repeated, "Then you're definitely going to want to see what we found."

"And that would be?"

"Just follow me, Dwarf." She said.

Mog glanced at Matalian, who was perched quietly beside Phadian, and, realizing he was unlikely to leave his friend, walked past them.

* * *

"Well, I can't really can't it Hank anymore." Mog said as he wiped his hands clean.

Laying in the remains of the cocoon were the remains of Hank: her girth had been wasted away and her body was skeletal, flesh pulled tight against bone. Her mouth was open in a silent scream, her rotting eyes staring into the sky.

At the center of the cocoon, they had found an unnatural umbilical cord that connected with the earth. Mog had already cleaved it and followed the dying roots as far as he could, but not far below the surface that spread into a tangle web that might well be miles wide.

"I feel bad for her. She was a bitch, but she didn't deserve this." Korra remarked.

"Save your pity for the living." The Sheriff commented darkly beside them.

Korra bit back the sarcastic response on her tongue and began covering the body with a rough fabric blanket.

"What are we going to do now?" Mog asked the Sheriff.

"What it takes to survive. We'll fortify further tonight and hope it will be a quiet one."

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Three: Enter the Variable **_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own D and D! The characters within, however, are the intellectual property of several people. **_

The halfling cursed the high noon heat as she walked through the village. She had noted the bramble wall and the people who bustled around it so intently they failed to notice she even existed. Privately, she preferred it that way. It was so much easy to make a living when people weren't watching your every move.

Smirking to herself, she slipped into the tavern, imaging that it would be empty and easy to loot.

To her surprise, she found a woman sitting on the bench beside a badly wounded...man?...woman?...was it even human?...it was too hard to tell through the multiple layers of bandages and cream. To the back was a tall man who sat compulsively braiding his hair.

The woman certainly looked worse for wear; there was some blood on her leather corset, and bruising along her chin. Her eyes, however, burned in the pitiful light.

"If I were you, I would turn around, halfling, and keep walking."

"Who are you to tell me anything?" The halfing snapped back, "My travels are my own business."

"Then your business here is death." Ruby responded.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I'm not in the habit of giving away my name. You?"

"My name is my business."

Ruby laughed dryly, "Foolhardy little thing."

"What seems to be going on here, anyway?" The halfling asked.

Ruby shrugged, "Something keeps dragging the villagers out of their beds at night and cocooning them up. What happens after that is anyone's guess, although I have a strong suspicion that they turn into walking shrubs with a nasty attitude."

"Sounds interesting enough." The halfling commented.

The doors swung open a moment later as Korra and Mog walked back in. The Dwarf was still wiping his hands clean on a scrap of fabric; Korra, however, was strangely quiet until she finally said, "We found Hank."

"What was left of her, anyway." Mog said as he sat down.

Ruby turned her eyes on Mog, "Do you have any idea what those things are?"

Mog shook his head with a grunt.

"I've never seen anything like them, either..." Korra trailed off.

Ruby sighed, looking hard at the floor before remarking, "I might be able to find something."

Korra's eyebrow lilted up with curiosity, "How?"

Ruby stood up and walked out the door.

* * *

She wandered out of the village and into the surrounding bramble until she couldn't hear or see the village. There in a small clearing, she kneeled down on the ground and drew her dagger. She stared at it for a long time with dread before drawing it across her palm decisively.

Blood trickled from her fist onto the ground and ground out the painful words.

"My Lord Phraxius, I come before you to ask for your aid."

The voice boomed inside her head, disturbing in ways she could begin to describe. He was malice and cruelty embodied and took joy only in the pain of others...He knew her deepest secrets and her darkest fears and she knew that, _when_, not if, the time came, that he would use them to the fullest...

She choked back a sob as he yelled, "What do you require?"

"Do you know what those things in the forest are?"

"You will have to learn to speak more respectfully to your god."

"My Lord, would you grace me with your knowledge?" Ruby ground the words out slowly.

"They are with the the Nameless One. Be rid of those fools and move on."

Ruby nodded, bowing and rising as the evil inside of her receded back. It was only then, though, that she realized there was something in the shadows.

Her eyes shot to the left and she saw a trail of braids, plaited around trophies, fading into the forest.

* * *

Korra eyed Ruby as she walked back through the door and asked, "Find anything?"

"Nothing." Ruby replied.

Korra crossed her arms over her chest before she sighed, "It's going to be dark soon."

The Ranger suddenly smiled radiantly, "But that Dwarf and the Sheriff have been working all day on a new defense. I'm actually interested to see if it'll work. I already agreed to be first watch."

"Very well. I'm going to go get some sleep." Ruby said.

"We can't exactly leave that one down here..." Korra motioned to Phadian with her chin, "Their plan includes everyone staying here for the night."

Ruby sighed privately. The idea of spending a night with a cleric of Ehlonna was not a pleasant one, but given he was unconscious, at the very least, he couldn't spout anymore of his religious nonsense.

"Fine."

* * *

"Do you have a prison of any kind?" Mog asked the Sheriff as they looked over a map.

"A simple one in the office." He responded.

"Let me see it."

* * *

Made of poor quality wood, it wouldn't hold back much, Mog reasoned coolly. On top of that, there was hardly enough wood there to do much. He inquired about a quarry and was told there was one three days walk from the West end of the village.

"Do you have any metal?" Mog asked.

"A few spare grates downstairs. Follow me."

Mog did as he was asked and followed the burly Sheriff down into a makeshift dungeon. It had three cells, two on the right, one on the left. Each had a metal grate for a door.

"What are these men accused of?" Mog asked as he looked at the two occupied cells.

"Theft."

"That's a relatively petty crime."

"Not in a village this small." The Sheriff replied. "We rely on trust here."

"Put them on watch tonight. You can use the steel of the doors to barricade the windows and door of the tavern." Mog said.

The Sheriff clearly did not like the idea, but after a few seconds of mulling over his options, he agreed to it.

"We'll have to hurry." He grunted as he fumbled for his keys. "Night is not far off."

* * *

Night came and went quietly. With everyone in one place, it was much easier to account for all the individuals on watch, and though there was some scrabbling in the night, no one was attacked or taken.

As the sun began to peak over the mountains, the group collected itself and began making preparations to move. Through the night, they discovered there was a temple three days march from the village. The Sheriff told them it was their best hope for the priest.

"We can't exactly carry him for three days." Korra remarked dryly.

The Sheriff, clearly eager at the thought of having Ehlonna's cleric out of his village, replied, "You can have one of our carts. All of our oxen and cattle have been taken in the night, but I'm sure you'll manage."

Korra looked prepared to argue the point when Matalian picked up one of the cart handles and volunteered himself to pull first.

Sighing, Korra nodded in resignation and picked up the other side.

"I'll ride along." The halfling said simply as she climbed into the cart.

"Now wait just a minute," Korra began testily, "I don't remember inviting you along."

"We could use the extra hand." Mog said with some humor.

"I am _not _dragging her ass around." Korra snapped back.

With his usual self-assured reason, Mog calmly hoisted the halfling up by her cloak and began walking.

* * *

It was slow going at first. The loose soil and the weight of the cart, Phadian, and their packs made traveling more than a mile or so at a time grueling. Around noon, they estimated they had traveled no more than three hours, and even that effort had exhausted Matalian and Korra.

They stopped briefly for lunch before Mog and Ruby took up the second part of the shift. They were no more than a mile into their haul when Korra stopped them to inspect the remains of a camp fire.

By her estimates, it had been there for only a few nights...which made the drag marks leading away from it all the more disconcerting...

"Let's keep going." Korra said, rising from the ground and scouting out ahead.

She returned periodically throughout the day to assure them she had found nothing until she suggested stopping for the night roughly two hours later.

With their manpower exhausted, they had no choice.

With their supplies centralized on the cart, they built up a small fire, volunteered for their watches, and fell into exhausted slumber.

The halfling, who finally revealed her name to be Maple, spent the earliest part of the night scouting the tall grasses while Matalian stood guard over the camp. Around midnight, Mog took over to allow them to sleep. As the darkest part of the night wore on, he eventually roused Korra and Ruby and fell into his own sleeping pallet.

Ruby and Korra had just settled into their watch when something rustling in the distance caught their attention. Ruby heard it first and moved to investigate when Korra's hand came down hard on her shoulder.

Korra took a step backwards, crouching low to the ground as she crept over to Mog and Matalian. She tapped each of them, quickly pressing her fingers to her lips as her eyes flickered up to the thing cutting slowly through the tall grasses. Beside them, Maple stirred gently as she reached for her crossbow.

It was eerily quiet when it lumbered into the light of the campfire. The creature was massive, hulking and tall, plated in armor and bearing a morning star.

Maple's fingers began to move every so slightly when Ruby's closed around her wrist. She shook her head slowly, mouthing deliberately, "Don't provoke it. It might pass-"

She hadn't even finished the statement when Mog jumped up, hefting his ax and charging it. At the same moment, the creature bellowed horribly and swung its morning star with crushing force.

The spiked head struck Ruby full across the chest, throwing her back almost twelve feet where she landed with a heavy 'thud'.

"Damn it!" Maple cried as she scrambled up and disappeared into the dark. She circled around the camp quickly, dragging Ruby back from the fight and binding her chest before taking a defensive stand over the fallen rogue, her dagger held out in front of her.

"Idiot Dwarf!" Korra shouted as she leapt forward onto the Bugbear. Circling its massive neck with her arm, she pulled her dagger and began stabbing blindly at its throat.

Mog, who was scrambling around the creature's feet, shouted back something unintelligible as he raised his ax and swung hard against the thing's knee. Matalian, who had flanked it from behind, swung hard into its back with his mace.

The thing reared up with a scream, throwing Korra off of its back. She landed hard a few feet away and scrambled up.

"This thing just won't die!" She yelled in frustration as she strung her bow and took a wild shot.

By chance, it struck the creature against the cheek, giving Matalian enough time to strike its other knee. The creature fell forward, bellowing, right into the line of Mog's ax.

The sound was cut off suddenly by a killing blow to its throat.

"Take that!" Korra yelled victoriously into the night.

Mog, however, calmly went over to the campfire and stomped it out before returning to his sleeping bag.

Matalian helped load the injured Ruby onto the cart and disappeared into the surrounding grasses. He returned about an hour later and enlisted Korra's help building up a new fire and boiling down a number of leaves and skimming off the oils that rose in the water.

As she sat spooning the glistening beads into small glass vials, she looked up and asked, "What else can you teach me about the plants in this area?"

Matalian shrugged, "There aren't many."

"And when we get further out of here?"

"Then I can show you more."

"And our two friends?" Korra asked.

"They'll live."

"Good."

* * *

The morning came and went. Eventually, so did the afternoon and the second night. And then the third morning, afternoon, and night. Aside from the odd scrabbling in the dirt, or the remains of campfires, they found nothing, and were found by nothing.

Late on the third day, something finally began to peer over the horizon: a tower of stone that rose against the backdrop of the sky, ringed by a black fringe of houses and buildings.

"Finally." Mog breathed as he picked up the cart handle and began dragging it again.

"Shut up." Korra responded touchily.

"At least it's almost over." Maple said, sitting back on the edge of the cart.

* * *

Several hours later, they finally pulled the cart through a modest stone entryway that opened into the village.

"Dear goddess, do you need help?" Someone called out, hurrying over to look at the dirty, tired group.

"A place for our friends would be appreciated." Mog replied flatly.

"Of course!" The woman said, hurrying to lead them to an inn not far down the main stretch of roughly paved road. She rushed in before them, calling out faintly to the inn keep. The man, young but unreasonably calm, asked what kind of accommodations they would require.

"Two rooms." Mog said simply, offering a number of coins, "And a healer, if your village has one to spare."

"We'll send for a cleric." The keep said as he accepted the coins and showed them in.

Korra and Maple helped set Ruby up in the bed of one room while Mog and Matalian took Phadian to another just down the hall. They were in the middle of settling down for the night when there was a knock at the door of the first room.

Mog called out, "Come in."

The young man who entered was a tired looking young man who escorted a slightly older man. He wore the robes of a priest, and carried a small chest with him.

"I hear you have injured among your own." He said formally.

"On the bed." Mog grunted.

The priest nodded gently and walked over to inspect him. He gently lifted several bandages to peer beneath them, and tested the remaining flesh with his fingertips. Finally, he said, "There's nothing that we can do for your friend. Whoever bandaged him was more than competent and there is no sign of ulceration. Should he wake, though," He held up a small jar filled with salve, "This will help."

The priest walked away without a further word, nearly walking into Korra as she crossed the hallway.

"Any luck?" She asked.

"They gave us a jar of salve." Mog said, pressing the jar towards her.

Korra reached out and took it from him and opened it. The cream inside was white and a little bit runny, but she couldn't see anything in it.

"What do you think, Matalian?" She said as she palmed it and slipped it into his fist.

He lifted it tentatively to his nose and sniffed at it for sometime before responding, "There is belladonna in it. I'm not sure what else."

"That's a poison..." Korra trailed off.

"And an anesthetic." Mog retorted.

"One way to find out," She replied with narrowed eyes as she took the jar and wiped a small amount across her forearm.

Mog offered his forearm without looking away from his pack and she dabbed a bit on his arm, as well.

At first, it felt slightly warm against her skin. A bit unexpected, but not unpleasant. As she sat talking with her companions, though, it started to burn. Initially, it brought a blush to the skin it had been applied to, not entirely unexpected, she thought to herself, but as the minutes wore on, the skin began to blister.

"Fuck this." She hissed as dampened a rag with some water from her canteen and wiped the cream off. "_Don't _put that shit on him."

Mog inspected his arm quickly, noted nothing, and shrugged, "Fine by me."

"I'm turning in for the night," Korra said as she tossed the rag aside, "But if you need me, you know where to find me."

* * *

Mog sat in the main room of the inn for a long time, staring over the rim of his mead and musing to himself. He couldn't help but noticed that the people of this town all had green eyes flecked with orange...like an orchard of ripe fruit in the spring...and hair that seemed to be made of moss...

* * *

Phadian awoke in the morning, startled and disoriented. The room, or what he could see of it, was much more lavish than the tables of the tavern they had been sleeping on. In fact, he realized as he tried to push himself up on his hands, he was laying in a bed...One of three that he could see when he turned his head.

The first was occupied by a Dwarf, who was snoring heartily, and the second was empty. Beside it, was a bundle of blankets and a coarse fabric bag that cushioned the head of Matalian.

He sat up, peeled off the bandages around his face, and felt around it. His face, chest, and arm hurt quite a bit, and he could feel a sticky residue, though he found it wasn't blood when he pulled his hand away.

Rising, he knelt at the bottom of the bed and began his morning prayers. He thanked his goddess for his life and the beautiful day blossoming around him, prayed for the safety of the village and the redemption of its people, and asked her to heal his wounds.

A moment later, he felt the skin begin to close and the pain begin to dissipate.

He got up, unwrapped the bandages and disposed of them. He changed his clothes and walked out into the inn.

* * *

"Damn..." Ruby hissed as she rubbed at her sore chest. Aside from some light bruising and scrapes, she couldn't detect any deeper wounds. It seemed that her ribcage had been largely spared.

"Good morning, Sunshine!" Korra sing-songed brightly.

"Same to you." Ruby replied flatly as she forced herself up.

"Got breakfast!" Maple chanted as she walked through the inn door carrying a platter of bread, some jam, and some fruit.

"Where are we?" Ruby asked as she swung her legs over a chair.

"We're in the village of the clerics." Korra responded, spreading jam over a thick slice of white bread.

"And the others?"

"Just down the hall." Korra told her.

There was a knock at the open door and they looked up with a collective gasp. Korra's hand shot up to her mouth and Maple dropped her apple. It rolled across the floor and landed at Phadian's feet.

Smiling, if it could even be called that...the scarring on his face pulled horribly at his lips and cheek, he reached down, picked it up, and offered it back to them.

"Shit..." Korra mumbled.

Maple looked faintly green as she turned away from him and clenched her fists. It took almost everything she had not to lose her breakfast across the floor.

"Is everything alright?" Phadian asked, his eyes shimmering with concern.

Ruby sighed before asking, "Korra, do you have a mirror?"

The half-elf ranger nodded and reached into her pack. She pulled out a small oval of roughly polished glass and handed it to her.

"You're not going to like this." The red-haired rogue warned him before flipping the mirror over.

Phadian gasped, clutched at the mirror, and, with a tear in the corner of his good eye, stuttered that he needed a moment.

He stumbled out through the door, panic boiling low in his stomach, and turned down the hall.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter Four: The Town of Stone and Silence**_

_**Disclaimer: I do NOT own D and D, but the characters within are intellectual property. **_

"He needed to know sooner or later." Mog said, crossing his arms over his barrel-shaped chest.

"There was a more sensitive way to do it..." Maple trailed off uneasily.

"We can't afford to coddle him." Ruby interjected, kneeling beside her back and taking stock of her supplies.

"Either way, he's been gone for hours. Don't you think we should go look for him?" Korra asked, staring out the window of their room.

"Give him his space." Ruby replied.

* * *

"Excuse me," Phadian began lightly, flinching back when the hood of his cloak shifted, "Could you please tell me where I might find a cleric?"

"I apologize, Sir," The young woman said, brushing a lock of bushy hair behind her ear, "The temple has been sealed for the night. I would suggest coming back in the morning."

"For the night? It's not even mid-afternoon..." Phadian trailed off.

The wind suddenly kicked up, blowing his hood off of his head. He froze, terrified of what their response might be, and his hand went to his dagger. The woman, however, smiled pleasantly and continued on her way along the main street of vendors.

It took him a long moment to relax, but when he did he had the odd thought that maybe Korra's mirror had also been damaged in the fight. It was a heartening thought and he smiled to himself as he looked high into the sky and thanked Ehlonna for her graces.

As he walked back, however, he deliberately avoided the water troughs that lined the street. Deep in the back of his mind, there was a whisper of something frightening...That, perhaps, it had been Korra's mirror that was true. He shrugged that thought aside, however, and smiled, comforted by the knowledge that Ehlonna's love would not allow that to happen to a dutiful servant of the Goddess, and carried on, whistling to himself as he went.

* * *

"Pardon me, Sir," Ruby smiled alluringly, "I was wondering if you could tell me where the nearest tavern is."

"Of course, My Lady." His smile was more smirk, "If you follow this main road to the east, you'll find it on your left."

Ruby thanked him with a nod of her head and suppressed the shiver that crawled down her back.

His eyes, she realized in the sunlight, were unnaturally green and dotted with bright orange. With his hair, which was a mossy texture with a tone of faint green, he seemed to give the impression of an unnatural tree...

She walked back up the hall to her room and quietly latched the door behind her. Leaning close, she whispered to Korra: "There's something wrong here...Watch your back..."

Korra's green eyes sharpened dangerously.

"These aren't people..." Ruby continued, "Though I can't tell what else they might be..."

Korra nodded firmly and latched the door behind the rogue as she walked back into the hall.

* * *

"Please," The inn keep said eerily as he wandered down the hall to leave them for the evening, "Do not leave your rooms tonight. Strange things can happen in the dark."

"What a weird man." Korra sighed as she closed and latched the door.

"Are you surprised?" Ruby asked.

"Of course not," Korra snorted, "That doesn't mean I have to like that we're sitting in a village of potential monsters."

"Shh!" Maple hissed fiercely, "I doubt we'll be able to take on an entire town if they hear you blathering through the doors!"

"Shut up!" Ruby whispered dangerously as she stood and crept over to the window.

She pressed her ear against the wooden shutters just as something scurried over it...It scrabbled quickly over the window and across the wall.

Her eyes widened as she took a step back and motioned to her companions, "They're here..."

Maple drew her crossbow and slipped quietly beneath the bed, taking aim at the shutters. Korra pressed herself against the edge of the window with her staff held at the ready as Ruby knelt down on the opposite side with her dagger drawn.

Without warning, the shutters exploded into wooden shrapnel. Three tree-like monstrosities rushed into the room, and let out a horrible wail in tandem with a bloodcurdling scream that lifted high into the night from a room at the end of the hall.

Korra turned hard on her heel, knocking the first one back through the window with an echoing crack. The second was pierced in the same moment by a bolt that flew in a silver flash from under the bed. It reeled back in pain, landing against Ruby and throwing her to the floor with its thrashing.

The third turned, setting its gaze on the rogue as she kicked the first one off. She tried to flip herself upright, but it charged. In the same moment, Korra swung her staff low and threw it aside.

"We just can't catch a fucking break!" She howled as something in the next room over, the room where Mog and Matalian and Phadian had been resting, shrieked and scrabbled across the floor...

* * *

Phadian hit the floor hard, his bow flying from his grip and the arrow clattering across the floor. He turned over onto his back and jerked his arm up as the thing raced at him.

Matalian bellowed fiercely, beating his chest with one hand as he picked up his mace with his other. He crossed the room in three impossibly fast strides and swung up, catching the thing under it's legs. It struck the ceiling, coming down hard against Matalian's feet in a spatter of pulpy gore.

"Th-thanks..." Phadian stammered as he found his feet and crouched to retrieve his bow.

Behind him, he heard a deep 'thud' as Mog's ax hit home against another. In the candlelight, he saw the ax flash high above the Dwarf's head before coming down hard again and again.

"We should probably go see how the others are doing." Mog said flatly as he hefted his ax out of the remains of the creature and over his shoulder.

"Go ahead." Phadian said as he dusted himself off, "I'll catch up."

Mog, however, was already out the door and beating on the opposite one. When he heard the solid 'thunk' of a body striking the floor, he kicked the door in. In the same instant, Korra flew into him, throwing them both out into the hallway.

Matalian charged over them, taking an impressive leap that cleared the two fighters as they struggled to disentangle themselves. He slid across the floor, ramming one of the creatures so hard that Ruby saw its caricature of a chest cave slightly.

It distracted the other one long enough for Maple to aim and fire a bolt that penetrated deep. As it turned in a flailing attempt to dislodge it, Ruby managed to dig her dagger in. It dropped in almost the same second as Matalian's mace came down on the first.

Matalian quickly turned around, surveying the scene, before howling and beating on his chest victoriously; a gesture that clearly bemused Korra and Mog as they pulled themselves up from the ground.

"You know," Korra huffed as she brushed herself clean, "I can't help but notice that someone screamed down the hall, that we've been fighting these things for almost five minutes, and that no one has come to check on this..."

"Tree people..." Maple trailed off.

"What about tree people?" Phadian asked as he stepped in the room only to have Korra clamp her hand over his mouth.

She pressed her index finger to her lips, shaking her head.

"Let's just get back to our rooms. Dawn isn't far off." Mog commented as he lumbered back to his room.

* * *

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Korra asked in a low hiss as Phadian attempted to sneak past their room.

It was well after dawn and the entire party was awake, regardless. That and the broken in door certainly didn't contribute to stealth of any kind...

"There are clerics here. Someone who might be able to help us by teaching me more advanced spells." Phadian trailed off, looking vaguely confused.

"I seriously doubt that the fucking tree people will be able to help us." Korra whispered back fiercely.

"Nevertheless, I need a place to pray. Where better than the temple?"

Korra rolled her eyes and walked back into her room to sit with Ruby and Maple.

* * *

Phadian approached the gate of the Temple and found a single gardener, tending a number of beautiful, sunset colored roses.

"Pardon me, Sir, but I'm looking for a cleric-"

Wordlessly, the man pointed over his shoulder, through the entrance of the temple and towards a man directing traffic with a flick of his finger.

Phadian walked over with a smile and said, "Sir, excuse me?"

"How can I help you?" He said without looking away from the steady flow of people.

"I'm looking for a cleric, if you would be so kind-"

"That way." He said with a flick of his thumb over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry-"

"That way!" The man replied, turning his back on Phadian.

Somewhat unnerved, Phadian walked past him and under a stone arch. Beneath it, he followed the flow of traffic, which seemed to follow a pattern of lines and circles engraved into the stone floors. He followed them back for a way until he came to a young man who instructed him to enter an alcove off of the main path.

"I see another curious questioner has come to seek the wisdom of ages!"

"Do you have a healer of exceptional ability?" Phadian asked.

"All of our healers are of exceptional ability!" He smiled.

"True, but only the best of us," Phadian began uneasily, attempting to establish himself among them, "have earned the ability to speak in many planes."

"If you seek answers, you will need to seek the wisdom of Calcrix! Please, pray here and I will go retrieve our senior cleric." The young man smiled.

He disappeared through a door in the middle of the circular room, closing it behind him.

* * *

"He's been gone for a while..." Korra trailed off.

"And?" Ruby asked.

"I'm going after him." She finally said resolutely.

Ruby opened her mouth to talk her out of it, but in the end sighed and agreed to join her. Mog and Matalian, upon learning about their decision, also elected to go with them to the temple. In the end, only Maple stayed behind to keep an eye on their supplies.

* * *

"I swear to goodness, if another cleric gives me this fucking run around, I'm going to-"

Ruby shot Korra a glance that silenced her pretty quickly, though she could hardly fault the Ranger for her irritation. It had taken more than twenty minutes to transverse what amounted to about three hundred feet. Even more frustrating, not a single cleric seemed to have the capacity to give them a straight answer.

"You're the one who wanted to come here." Ruby pointed out.

"If I had known..."

"If _I_ had known I was going to wind up chasing after a cleric of Ehlonna, _I_ would have stayed in bed." The red-haired rogue hissed.

Korra grumbled back at her, "There he is."

Phadian was standing in front of a door in the middle of a circular room. Both Mog and Ruby quickly noticed that many of the decorative circles were actually pressure plates for traps. They watched for a moment as a number of people walked over the plates to no obvious effect and then stepped forward.

"What are you doing here?" Korra asked, folding her arms over her chest.

"Waiting for the senior cleric."

"How long have you been here?" Mog asked.

"I'm not entirely sure," Phadian began, "But I think we're closing in on an hour..."

He looked at the door in front of him for several minutes before he approached it. He didn't get far, however, before he was stopped by a young man who looked quite nervous. The lower cleric practically flung himself in front of Phadian.

"Please, Sir, do try to be patient."

"I've been here for almost an hour now. I simply wish to speak to your senior cleric."

"And what is the answer you seek?"

"Excuse me?" Phadian said, "I only have a simple question..."

"Your question is different than mine, I'm sure."

"And what is the answer you found?" Phadian said, both confused and intrigued.

"The answer that you seek!"

"And that would be?"

"Calcrix!" The cleric replied enthusiastically.

"What is Calcrix?" Korra asked, her eyebrow lilted up in confusion.

"The answer to my question!"

"Which was?" Phadian asked.

"Different than yours, I'm sure." The cleric said with a shrug.

Mog and Ruby both looked ready to cut the frustrating man down where he stood when the door behind him swung open slowly to reveal a hunched old man. It wasn't until he got close, however, that they realized how old he was.

Elven-borne, he had the gnarled appearance of an arthritic's hand across his entire being. His face was a congregation of deep wrinkles that almost hid his features. His eyes barely twinkled beneath the sea of flesh. His hands were skin stretched tight over old bone, his joints swollen.

"Welcome," He began in a faint whisper, clutching his walking stick, "To the Temple of Calcrix."

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," Phadian began with a low bow, "I have come to seek your wisdom."

"You remind me of my brother...but he died..." The old man's eyes seemed to dim, "Long ago, we failed our god and he brought destruction to our people. We tried to fight it, foolish children that we were, but we failed...and he died...But that was a long, long time ago..."

"You failed Calcrix?" Korra asked, "How?"

"We were arrogant youth who dabbled too far in the matters of the darkness. My brother tried to fight the resulting tide, but he died..."

"We understand your brother died," Mog began testily, "Perhaps you could tells us about what's going on in these woods."

"What do you mean?" The senior cleric said, seeming to stare right through the Dwarf.

"There are unnatural things in these woods." Mog continued.

"They come from the old temple...from before the war...When we had the blessing of Calcrix."

"And what is Calcrix?" Ruby asked.

"Everything," The old man smiled, "And nothing."

"Perhaps you could help us?" Phadian said, "We wish to put an end to the evil brewing here."

The old man suddenly looked at them, hard and unflinchingly. His eyes wandered over them, _through _them and inside them, until his gaze softened just as quickly and he turned his twinkling eyes on the clerics and people around him.

"You seem to be alive..."

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked, her gaze steeling.

"These people," The cleric began softly and sadly, "Are not real...ghosts of that far away place. They are neither dead nor living...shades of what they used to be...They do not even know what they have lost...Long ago in that temple, something was taken from them...My brother tried to stop it, but he died..."

"Answer us plainly, cleric." Ruby demanded with coldly.

"You seem to be alive..." He said, "Yes, yes...I believe you are...And yet so unafraid of the death around you..."

"There are things worse than death." Ruby replied, her hand clutching the dagger at her side.

"The temple is three days travel from here."

Ruby turned hard on her heel and walked out.

"Those creatures?" Phadian asked the cleric, "What are they?"

"I do not know." The ancient elf replied, "But I know that they are spreading from the old temple. There is the heart of the cancer spreading now."

"And how do we stop it?" Korra broke in.

"That is for you to find out. Stay tonight, here, in the temple. But I must ask that you stay in your rooms after dark. It would be very dangerous to leave them."

"Dangerous?" Mog cocked an eyebrow.

"We must fortify against the things in the dark." The cleric said.

"Perhaps you would allow me to aid your guards?" The Dwarf said.

"We could not be responsible for your safety." The elf trailed off slowly.

"That's fine." Mog said.

"Very well. Gather your belongings, my friends. The dark is near..." The cleric turned back slowly and opened the door to his office.

Spiraling up from the floor was a wide staircase with intricate patterns. He began slowly, deliberately avoiding some tiles and purposely stepping on others, before the door closed behind him and he disappeared from sight.

"At least we know why that took so long..." Korra sighed to herself as she stared hard at the door and contemplated how many traps there might be embedded in the rock.

"I suppose we should go get everyone else." Phadian said, wondering how late it was in the day.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter Five: The Road to Calcrix**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own D and D, but the characters within are the intellectual property of several people! **_

"They're a little sickly, but they'll do." Korra said as she inspected the two oxen they were presented.

Both of them were malnourished and anemic, and the glare of the sun seemed painful for them. The grass beneath their feet confused them, and the whistle of the wind in the trees startled them.

"All of our oxen and crops are raised beneath the temple, to protect them." The cleric explained.

"It's better than hauling the cart." Maple admitted with a sigh.

"If only barely..." Mog grunted.

"Our senior cleric sends you his best wishes and will pray for your safe return." The young man said as he bowed low and ducked back into the stone temple.

"Save them for someone else..." Ruby trailed off almost sadly as she hefted her pack and started walking.

* * *

"There's nothing out there." Ruby said as she appeared beside the group from the cluster of tall grasses.

"And nothing following." Korra said as she stepped out on the opposite side of the group.

"But we haven't heard so much as the call of a starling..." Phadian trailed off.

"There's always the danger that lies beneath." Ruby said simply.

Korra nodded gently, her eyes drawn to a dark slash across the earth that was visible like a scar in the flesh of the earth. It had been growing steadily in her vision for the last several hours, and she couldn't stop the chill that raced down her spine as she looked at it.

* * *

The fire burned low to the ground, throwing shadows onto the ground where they spread towards the eerie quiet of the tall brush around them. Phadian and Matalian were sleeping beside Mog and Korra on one side of the small clearing they had used to make camp. Maple and Ruby were crouched low to the ground, their ears and eyes open.

It was shortly before the beginning of the third watch that Maple heard something lumbering through the grass. Ruby, alerted by the snap of a dry twig, stared hard into the parting grass. A moment later, two creatures stumbled into the camp's circle.

Both had clearly been dead for a while; their flesh hung in shreds on their skeletons, exposing bone and desiccating organs. Their faces were set in horrible grins where the flesh had been shredded away from the mouth. The skin of their hands had drawn back, revealing the bone.

The first snatched at Maple, grabbing her by her cloak and pulling her to its mouth. The halfling cursed, struck out blindly and caught the corpse under the jaw. It reeled back, dropping her.

"What the hell?" Korra yelled as she scrambled to her feet.

"Undead!" Mog said as he rose.

The first lumbered at them, the second turning on Ruby as she tried to slip into the cover of the grass.

Phadian picked himself up and cursed under his breath. He was out of spells for the day and hadn't been able to prepare more for the coming day. He reached for his bow, notched an arrow, and took aim. He realized he had been too slow a fraction of a second later when the corpse knocked him to the ground.

He heard Matalian's roar in the same breath, and saw his mace flash in the air. Behind it, though, Phadian saw something glint silver in the grass. He heard a scuffle, a hard fall, a curse and watched as Ruby was flung bodily into the clearing.

She rolled with the blow, coming back on her feet and wiping blood from the corner of her mouth.

Phadian quickly found his feet and notched his bow again. His arrow shot over Korra's shoulder and hit home in the chest of the creature descending on her. He fell back, groaning and kicking, as it tried to dislodge the projectile.

The second one shambled out from the grass, Ruby's dagger still imbedded near its hip, and charged. Korra smirked as she closed in from behind it, her staff swinging hard across its back. The undead stumbled, lost its already poor balance, and fell forward.

As it went down, Mog lifted his ax and brought it down with a sickening crack on the back of its skull. In almost the same breath, Matalian's mace finished the first, throwing bits of bone and congealed blood into the night air.

Korra took a step forward, lowering her staff, and asked, "What the hell happened?"

Ruby sighed, "I tripped."

Korra's face blushed crimson as she tried unsuccessfully to suppress the laughter deep in her belly, "The rocks got you, too, huh?"

Ruby, despite herself, smirked and nodded.

"Well, I suppose we're even now for that fiasco in the village." Korra replied.

* * *

On the second day, the chasm in the earth began to widen. It ran almost parallel to the group as they traveled. From their position, they could see that it was not a burn so much as a rent in the earth...as though the gods of old had split open the soil to see inside. The ground near it was charred, but not by fire...Unease settled over them.

* * *

On the third day, they noticed that there were a number of sharp silhouettes jutting from the chasm, like pins in torn cloth...As they approached nearer, they realized they were the battlements of an old tower. What else there might have been, they couldn't say. Not even Mog's vision afforded them much.

"How far down do you think it is?" Maple asked.

"Let's see." Mog said as he flung a rock into the slash in the earth.

They waited for over a minute and still no echo reverberated up from the earth.

"I guess we're going down in there..." Maple trialed off.

"Yes." Phadian said resolutely as he rooted through his pack for a length of rope.

Between his stock, Ruby's and Mog's, they had just under a hundred and fifty feet of rope. They secured two lengths together with a complicated knot and coiled the rest neatly. Ruby strung the coils to her belt and scouted the edge of the abyss.

"We won't be able to take the cattle," Korra said, "But they stand a better chance up here than down there, anyway."

She unhitched them and gently shooed them into the woods. She hoped that Ehlonna would guard them...How sad it would be to spend your life within a dungeon, and to never know the sun and wind without fear...

She shook her head as she turned around and watched Mog secured the rope into a lasso and hooked over one of the battlement with a throw of his arm. He tested it several times, handing it over to Matalian to do the same, before deciding it would hold.

"It's sound." He announced.

"I'll go first." Ruby volunteered.

She grabbed the end of the rope and eased herself down over the edge of the chasm. Slowly, she worked her way down, pressing close against the remains of the tower until she finally found her footing on a narrow ledge. Up ahead of her, the stairs twisted up and died suddenly in a cliff of jagged rock. Below her, they stretched far past her vision. To her right, the chasm opened up even further. There was no guardrail of any kind and the stairs themselves were only about two feet wide. It was going to be long, slow, dangerous work getting down them.

She knelt on the ledge for a long time, her crossbow drawn, as the others climbed down. Mog and Phadian had just made it safely to the bottom when there was a sudden hooting shout of alarm. A fraction of a second later, Matalian's body hit the ground with crushing force.

"Shit!" Korra exclaimed, kneeling beside him to check his injuries.

Phadian circled around her side, crouching low beside his friend. His face was a canvas of worry and weariness that eased only when he realized Matalian was still breathing. He quickly cast the healing spell and then stood up and looked high into the sky.

From deep inside the earth, the light was beginning to fade against the pink sky. Already, what little light they had was dying behind the earth.

"We should wait to move until morning." He finally said.

Mog grunted a response and promptly hunkered down for the night, growling that he would take second watch.

"I'm beat. I can take second, but I won't make it through first." Korra said. Just over her shoulder, Phadian nodded in agreement.

"Fine." Ruby stated plainly, "Maple and I can take first."

She pulled her crossbow and inspected it and then slipped quietly into the shadows of the staircase.

* * *

"We'll have to go down in single file..." Phadian trailed off.

He didn't like the idea. There wouldn't be much room to maneuver and one poor step, one misjudged foothold...His eyes darted over the edge of the crumbling stairs and into the abyss that yawned up at him.

There was no telling what might be down there, waiting eagerly, for one of them to fall...No end to the horrors that might be slithering in the dark...He hoped, with sudden morbid desire, that the fall would be enough to kill anyone unfortunate enough to fall over the edge...Before something in the underground artificial night reached them first...

"I can lead." Maple said. "I'll give me a chance to check for any traps."

"Very well. I'll go next." Phadian said.

"Third." Korra replied.

"I'll take fourth." Mog grunted.

"Fifth." Ruby chimed in.

Matalian grunted something, but whether it was a noise of assent or not, not even Phadian could say.

They started creeping forward, pressed close to the wall that fed the staircase up and around the tower. The stairs, surprisingly, seemed to have survived the crash into the chasm relatively well.

They had just started around the curve of the tower when the wall suddenly broke away. The hole was jagged, but, as far as they could see into it, nothing more. In the darkness, however, something glinted in the meager light and without warning, the wall exploded.

The first giant rat came down hard on Korra. As she toppled forward, she had a sudden flicker of panic that it might carry her over the edge with it in some kind of dark embrace...down...down into the dark...

She fell hard against the stairs, her chest crushed between the bulk of her enemy and the stone. Mog, thrown by Korra's falling weight, crashed into Phadian.

Korra fought to pick herself up saw another gray and brown form rocket from the tunnel at them from the edge of her peripherals. She tried to flip herself over onto her side and elbow the creature away, but its jagged incisors ripped deep into her arm.

"Son of a bitch!" She shouted, tearing her arm away.

She suddenly felt a vibration rock the rat and it shrieked, sneering back at the group. By then, Ruby was already loading another bolt into the crossbow and lining it up. At that same moment the first rat clamped down brutally hard on her hand. She cried out and jerked back. Her momentum upset her balance and she landed against the stairs.

Matalian, seeing his opportunity, gave a howl as he rammed his mace against the skull of the rat. The life died from its eyes instantly and its limp body was flung over the edge and into the darkness.

The second one reared up suddenly and chittered. At it did, however, Phadian's hand found his blade. Drawing it back, he plunged it deep and, with a practiced flick of his wrist and arm, tossed the dying creature off of the dagger and over the edge of the stairs.

"Shit..." Korra hissed as she stood up and inspected her elbow, "I really hope that thing wasn't carrying any disease..."

She looked over at the hole in the wall and smirked suddenly. Rats were well known to hoard items that sparkled, like gold...She planted her hands against the crumbling wall and stepped inside it. It was a fairly shallow nest, about as deep as she was tall, and it didn't take long to find several silver pieces and some jewelry among the tattered rags.

"Jackpot!" She chimed as she stepped out and present the items she found.

Phadian laughed lightly, "At least we know why you're out here."

"The great company, of course!" Korra shot back with playful sarcasm.

* * *

"I can't see." Matalian grunted suddenly.

It struck the group almost simultaneously: He was the only one without some kind of enhanced vision and the darkness had been growing thicker with every hour.

"We could use a lead rope." Korra suggested.

"It won't work...the stairs aren't exactly an even path and if he falls..." Mog stopped his sentence short.

"He has a latern." Phadian offered.

"That's a bit like a dinner bell down here." Ruby snapped back.

It was, of course, too late...By then, Matalian had managed to find and light the lamp. It cut the thick blackness almost painfully, blinding them all for a fraction of a second.

"We're so going to get eaten..." Korra trailed off.

* * *

"How far back does this even go?" Maple wondered as she stared long and hard into the dark room.

"No idea." Mog responded.

Ruby crouched low to the tile and began inspecting the room. She moved in careful circles, starting at the edges of the wall and working her way in. On the opposite side, Maple did the same until they both came to stand in the middle of the room.

Aside from three bodies, two of them some weeks old and the other almost skeletal, there was nothing in the room that they could find.

"It's clear." Maple finally declared, walking over to one of the bodies.

It was impossible for her to tell what it might have been before death embraced it, but whatever had killed it had been powerful. The body was literally nailed to the wall by a javelin that had pierced both the breastbone and the stone.

Matalian eventually came over and casually sniffed at one of the corpses on the ground; slowly, he pulled the javelin from the body and inspected it. Engraved into the wood were a number of symbols he recognized. Methodically, he pored over them before purposefully gathering the remaining ones from the room.

"As I see it, we don't have too many options." Phadian began as he surveyed the room, "There's only two doors."

The first door was off to the left of the circular main room. The second was at one pole of the room.

"I'm all for this one." Korra said, pointing to the left door.

"Why not?" Maple shrugged.

"Alright, then." Phadian said as he walked over and opened the door.

It was a thin slice of wall, hollowed out with slits for archers, and, upon closer inspection, had probably never been part of the main room. It looked like it had crashed down from one of the battlements, weight and gravity almost fusing the rock.

In the dust and grime were two skeletons, locked forever in combat with some unseen enemy...

"Oh, shit!" Korra yelled as the bones nearest her suddenly came to life.

They both lumbered up, their hands reaching out towards the Ranger. Deep in the lifeless sockets of their skulls, she thought she saw something horrible and looming, threatening to swallow her...

Ruby's bolt smashed into the first creature's skull, sending it tumbling back. For a moment, she thought she might have ended the battle...until it pulled the projectile from the shattered bone of its orbital.

Ruby cursed as she reached for another bolt. Beside her, Korra was frantically trying to notch an arrow.

Neither of them noticed Phadian mumbling something under his breath until the room suddenly exploded with light. It was like the sun had plunged beneath the earth to heed his cry.

The skeletons let loose a horrible shriek of fear and clamored back, each trying desperately to fling itself through the slots in the archery posts.

"See," He said, smiling at Ruby, "Ehlonna is still here."

"I don't particularly care for your religious sermon." Ruby responded as she watched Mog and Matalian dispatch the creatures.

"I guess we're going through door number two now." Korra said with a shrug as she stepped out of the narrow room.

* * *

The second door opened into an oddly shaped room. Lining the wall were a number of small alcoves carved into the rock. In each one there was a small orb, the center of which danced with an odd blue light.

"What are they?" Korra asked as she leaned down to inspect one.

"I'm not sure." Phadian replied as he looked over another.

"I don't recognize these." Mog added.

"Alright then..." Korra trailed off, "Only one way to find out."

Before anyone could speak out against it, Korra's hand had shot out and snatched one from its alcove. The light within it began to expand, bathing the Ranger in its blue.

"That wasn't so bad-"

The orb began to _scream._ The air around them began to vibrate, the horrible sound rising to a fever pitch.

Phadian fell to his knees, a yell ripping up from his throat. Beside him, Maple began to scream, collapsing to her knees in agony. Matalian, briefly dazed, suddenly gave a primal shriek of rage and fear and bolted out of the room.

"What the hell?!" Ruby cursed.

She could still hear the vibrations, like the screams of the damned rising from the pits of Hell in a terrible cacophony of eternal torment, but it certainly didn't pain her the way it did her companions. Her eyes darted up and she found Mog, standing stony and strong behind her.

"Help me!" He yelled as he grabbed Korra's arms.

In his embrace, the Ranger screamed and convulsed. Her eyes were wide and fixed with agony, blood dripping from her ears.

Ruby sprinted over to them and braced her hands against the Dwarf's forearms. She pulled with everything she had, but the orb didn't so much as budge. Instead, the chorus of excruciation rose even higher; she could feel it in her bones like some creature trying to invade her.

The cleric suddenly stumbled to his feet and ran from the room down the opposite door, his yells dying back with his footfall.

"Damn it!" Ruby hissed as she braced her foot against the stone and _shoved_ against the pull of the orb.

It dropped suddenly from the Ranger's hands and clattered against the floor. The others, still in their alcoves, seemed to shudder. They rolled out of the sconces in the wall, swirled around the floor for a moment, and then grew still as the blue inside them died to a faint twinkle.

"Are you okay?" Ruby demanded as she knelt beside the Ranger.

Korra nodded dumbly, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

"Okay. Okay...Good." The red-haired rogue responded as she looked up and realized that both Phadian and Matalian were gone.

"I'll go after the cleric," Mog told her, "You go after Matalian."

"We can't leave Korra-"

"I'll be fine." The Ranger told her with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes,

The rogue nodded uncertainly before rising to her feet and sprinting down the corridor behind them.

* * *

The floor beneath him suddenly gave out and he careened into the dark. For a panicked moment, Phadian was certain that he would fall into the embrace of death...down...down...down...The air howling past his ears until finally he met with the ground...

The spikes shot up at him from the dark and it was only sheer dumb luck that he avoided impaling himself on one of them. He came down hard on his abdomen, winding himself painfully and for a long moment it was all he could do to gasp and fill his starved lungs with air.

In the same second he realized he had fallen no more than five feet into a simple pit, the hinged doors that comprised the floor above him began to cinch closed.

Panic erupted in his chest and he started to scream.

* * *

Mog _felt _it before he saw it. There was a tint of something amiss in the air...like blood in the water...Somewhere in the deep dark, he heard the scuffle of frantic feet against hard packed earth...the faint echoing of screams...

He barely jerked his legs away in time as the floor beneath him caved. The muffled screams suddenly gained new dimension and he sighed as he eyed the frightened priest at the bottom of the pit.

"Mog?" Phadian stopped in his tracks with almost comical speed, "Some help?"

The Dwarf chuckled to himself as he sat down at the edge of the pit, pinning the mechanism with his hefty legs as he secured a rope around his waist and tossed it down.

* * *

"Idiot..." Ruby sighed as she crouched beside Matalian's unconscious form.

She had finally found him near the landing where the stairs terminated in the floor of the first circular room. By the look of it, he had made a frantic dart up the stairs and, blinded by the heavy dark, had missed a step. His fall through the icy black had been short, at least...No more than twenty feet.

Gripping him under the arms, she dragged him back towards the main room.

* * *

"I'm all for staying here tonight." Phadian said as he began unrolling his pallet.

Ruby, as irritated as she was, couldn't fault him. It would be a bad idea to move any further in without a chance to rest. As it stood, until Phadian could renew his spells in the morning, Matalian was going to remain neatly bundled off to the side. Korra, for that matter, was little use to them without her hearing. And there was Maple; she looked about as ready to flee, screaming, from the dark as a child without its mother...

Sighing, the rogue took a seat beside her companions and leaned back against the damp stone.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter Six: In the Darkness**_

_**Disclaimer: I do NOT own D and D, but the characters within are the intellectual property of several individuals. **_

Phadian chanted his spells easily, allowing Ehlonna to flow through him. He had just finished casting when Korra and Matalian both began to stir. The Ranger smiled at him as she got up and checked her balance, and Matalian grunted something that might have passed for a 'Thank you.'

"Now what?" The cleric asked as he turned away from his patients.

"I'm all for avoiding the orbs!" Korra replied cheerfully.

"I say we back track." Mog interrupted, "I think there might have been another door."

* * *

The Dwarf hummed something to himself as he inspected the rock. He pressed his hand against the stone, running the tips of his fingers over the rock slowly. Eventually, he found what he was looking for: the dimpled impressions in the stone that he could line up. He sunk his hand against it, turned the circle of rock, and pushed it to one side.

The stone slid open to reveal another passage that wound down into the dark. Eventually, it branched into a corridor that was spotted with doors and opened at one end to reveal a narrower hall.

They drew lots to decide on the door and in the end it was the door nearest the hallway between the main room and the one they stood in that won. After a quick search by Ruby and Maple that turned up nothing, Mog entered it.

He noted that on the opposite wall of the otherwise barren room was a water fountain made of an odd marble. It was white with red veins, carved in the shape of a dragon swimming through a stream, and, as he approached it, he realized there was something disconcerting about it...

Though it felt like stone beneath his fingers, he could see discrete movement in the wings of the beast, as though it were floating through the water. Where his fingertips brushed the rock, it rippled and faded, like water...

He said nothing to the group, though he knew Phadian had seen him studying the fountain, and suggested they move on.

* * *

"I'm so fucking sick of doors." Korra panted as she rested against a crumbling wall.

Before Ruby could respond, Maple's voice came floating from the next room over, "Well...that's weird..."

"I'm going to regret this..." Korra sighed as she stood up, "But we might as well go see."

The rogue followed her friend into a room that was goodness only knew how far from where they had originally started. Hours in the dungeon, without so much as the sun to help track time, had disoriented her.

"Wow...it's a giant keg..." Korra trailed off sarcastically, clearly bemused.

Mounted against the wall was a giant wooden barrel with metal piping that ran up into the ceiling and down into the floor. How old it was was anyone's guess, but the rusted metal and bloated wood seemed to suggest age.

"What is it?" Maple asked.

In that same moment, a piercing shriek came from the barrel: "I'm DONE! I want OUT!"

What appeared in front of them was the caricature of a woman; she stood, or floated...about four feet in height and was robed in...water.

"An elemental..." Phadian trailed off.

"_What?_" Maple's brown was knit in confusion.

She continued on with her tirade, oblivious to the conversation in front of her: "Two hundred years! TWO HUNDRED YEARS! I'm done! I want out!"

"What are you talking about?" Phadian finally asked.

"You should know!" She yelled back, "_You people _put me here!"

"People?" Phadian's eyebrow turned up at the corner.

"Yes!" She wailed back, "Always coming to take more water!"

"And how often do these people come?" He asked.

"You people were just here a few minutes ago!" She ranted indignantly.

"Your facts are a bit out there." Korra told her flatly, "I'm sure how we could have imprisoned you before we _were born!_"

"We've only been in here for a few days." Mog added in agreement.

"You people are all the same! You were just in here a few minutes ago!" The fairy-like creature yelled in exasperation. "Make water! Make more water! MAKE EVEN MORE WATER! FOR TWO HUNDRED YEARS!"

"Perhaps we could help." Phadian said diplomatically.

She rolled her eyes, "Of course you can! You put the curse on that stupid barrel in the first place!"

"Again," Ruby sighed, "We've only been here for a few days."

"I don't particularly care! I want out!" She wailed pitifully.

"And how would we break the curse?" Phadian asked.

"You just need to break the barrel and smash the pipes." The elemental sighed wearily.

"That's easy enough." Mog said as he hefted his ax.

Phadian, however, was not so sure. He stared long and hard at the small creature, searching for the answer to a vague question. There was something he didn't like about it...

"Hey, I'm really not too sure about this..." Maple began.

"If we damage this, will it hurt you?" Phadian asked, tuning out the chatter around and behind him.

"I don't know." The elemental sniffed, "No one's ever tried."

"Is that a risk you are willing to take?" The cleric asked.

"It's better than this imprisonment!" She snarled back.

"Two hundred years..." Ruby sighed, "It is a long time..."

"We will help." Phadian finally said.

"Smash it! Smash it!" The creature began to chant, her fists balled up in anticipation.

Phadian shrugged as he took the morningstar from his belt and walked over to the barrel. He sighted the barrel and swung the weapon over his shoulder. He turned hard on his heel and let the weapon sink into the wood. When he pulled it away, the rent in the wood began to weep tears of water.

"Can't be that hard." Mog grunted as he swung his ax into the damaged wood and pried up.

Water flooded the floor up to his ankles before the thirsty soil began to pull it away.

"Smash the pipes! Smash the pipes!" She began to dance around the air, her face pulled in a smile.

"Give me the damn thing." Korra sighed as she stepped up and held out her hand.

Phadian turned over the weapon and watched with some amusement as the Ranger went to town on the rusty piping. Between her and Mog, it was quick work.

Phadian turned to bow to her, and said, "Have you felt the curse break?"

"Yes!" She beamed. "I'm free! Free!"

"I'm glad we could help-"

"And I'm going to enjoy it..." She smirked eerily, "As soon as I kill you, you, and you."

She pointed at Phadian, Ruby, and Korra in turn.

Before she could react, Korra was splashed in a wave of caustic acid. She stumbled back, yelling as she tried to wipe it away from her exposed arms.

"Please! Stop!" Phadian cried as he shoved himself between the two female half-elves and the elemental.

Ruby took the opportunity to drop her weight low to the ground and creep back into the shadows as Matalian and Mog charged in.

"You people did this to me and now you're going to pay!" She shrieked as she lashed out with a clawed hand.

The talons caught the cleric under the chin and threw him to the ground. The sight of his blood threw Matalian into a rage and he bellowed high into the air as he lifted his mace. As he brought it down, though, the Elemental swept under him and ripped into his chest.

"Please!" Phadian yelled as he got to his feet, "It doesn't have to be this way!"

"I think she already made that decision for us." Mog responded with eery calm as he swung his ax at the Mephit.

The cleric looked at his friend, still reeling from the burning attack, and the rage in the creature's eyes, and knew Mog was right. This was a battle he wasn't going to be able to get out of...He prayed that Ehlonna would forgive the indiscretion he was about to commit.

"Korra!" He yelled, "I need my morningstar!"

The Ranger looked up at him and nodded; the Mephit, sensing the danger more than hearing it, came down full on the cleric and tore into his arms with her claws.

Mog swung hard between them, forcing the Elemental off of Phadian and giving him just enough time to reach out, take his weapon from Korra, and rise. He moved to swing when the Mephit turned on him, showering him in acid.

Blinded, he lost his grip on his morningstar and the Mephit, seeing her chance, swung in low with her claws. They struck him against the face, tossing him bodily to the floor, where he didn't rise.

"Damn it." Ruby hissed as she slipped her crossbow back over her shoulder into her pack and reached for her dagger.

She waited until the Mephit was distracted by Matalian's swing to race out and drag Korra, who was rapidly losing consciousness, into the nearest corner. Quietly, she crept around to the other side, hidden in the shadows, and pulled Phadian from the melee.

She dragged him to a corner and inched over to the middle of the narrow wall. She retrieved her crossbow, notched a bolt, and fired.

Her timing, however, was poor. Matalian swung almost a full second before she fire, and the Mephit, in her attempt to dodge his mace, also dodged the bolt. It, instead, hit Matalian in the upper arm.

"Shit..." She trailed off.

Mog, apparently oblivious to anything else around him, knocked the Mephit down from behind and continued to hack at her for what felt like an eternity. He was surprisingly methodical about it, taking his time to find a rhythm and pacing through it until there was nothing but a spatter of oddly colored gore on the stone.

"Sorry about that." Ruby said as she appeared from the shadows and turned her gaze to Matalian.

"Shit happens." He grunted back.

"How are those two?" Maple asked, finally making her way into the room.

"They won't bleed to death, at least." Ruby responded.

She peered over her shoulder at them and was surprised to find Phadian was already rising. He took a stand near Korra and chanted something. A moment later, she was also fighting back to her feet.

The red-headed rogue felt a flash of sudden anger for the priest.

"You would have been content for all of us to die so long as we had gone down with Ehlonna's name on our lips! Next time you feel the need to sacrifice something to your goddess, make sure it's yourself and not one of us!" She hissed.

Phadian, for the first time in a long time, felt his rage building. He reeled back on her, "At least I can manage to avoid shooting one of my comrades!"

"Would you like a medal for not fucking up?" Ruby's humor was biting, "At the very least, if we make it out of this place, I'll be able to walk into public without giving people nightmares!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Phadian shouted back.

"Okay, now." Korra's voice was tight despite her light tone, "Let's break it up now and save some of that fire for the enemies."

"The next time you go down, cleric, don't expect me to help you." Ruby said plainly.

"I'll keep that in mind." The cleric responded.

"Okay. Enough now." Korra broke in as she grabbed her friend by the shoulders and led her to the other side of the room.

Phadian watched their whispered conversation, saw Ruby's hands ball at her sides and saw the flash of anger in Korra's eyes at a remark. He saw the Ranger push down her own hurt and sooth her friend back into some state of stability.

He couldn't help but feel a pang for the rogue. Life as a half-elf was hardly easy, but he pitied the cards she must have been dealt to make her so cold and angry...

He sighed and thanked Ehlonna again for her love and her light. Without her, he wasn't sure what he would do...especially without Artok...

* * *

They rested for a few hours in the darkness before any of them had the desire to go on further. The place seemed to suck the life out of them...

It took a almost two more hours, but eventually they managed to back-track back towards the main staircase and room. It wasn't until Ruby opened the door to the circular room, though, that they realized something had followed them down.

Standing in the center of the room, sniffing at the corpses, was a bugbear. For a moment, no one said anything, and, just as Ruby began creeping backwards, it suddenly looked up and set its eyes on Phadian.

Ruby cursed privately as she stiffened and went still. It seemed to be looking over her more than at her, but she couldn't be entirely sure.

Behind her, she felt someone move, but it wasn't until she heard Phadian's voice, rising in an almost hysterical shout, that she realized what he was doing; he charged forward, yelling, "DIE!"

The bugbear's eyes suddenly glazed over and in a slow, lumbering movement, it fell to the floor. Its chest, however, was still moving...

Mog ran forward, planted himself on the creature's chest, lined up the edge of his ax, and threw his weight down. The head separated from the body, and the hissing wheeze stopped.

They raided the body and found a few coins and a ring. The armor was patchwork leather, and although Korra took a few odd pieces in the event she needed to repair her own, there wasn't much left to salvage.

It wasn't until they got moving again that Ruby found a private moment with Korra. As the rest of the group filtered out, she pulled the Ranger aside and whispered, "I'm getting worried about Phadian."

"Why?"

"The rage is a bit uncharacteristic and we certainly don't need him losing his calm in the middle of a battle."

"True..." Korra's eyes flicked down the hall, "I'll keep an eye on it."

* * *

"Something doesn't smell right." Mog commented suddenly as a cold draft wafted through the room.

Ruby and Maple stopped their search for a moment and listened, but neither could hear anything odd or see anything alarming.

"Well, in the event we need to get out, this door is safe." The red-haired rogue said as she stood up from the floor.

"No reason to hold off on it." Korra said as she opened the door and walked in.

The room was massive, easily forty by fifty. Near the edge of one wall was a massive steel cage with the bars bent open, as though something had ripped its way out from inside of it. There were two doors on the opposite wall and, near the middle of the room, a sleeping pallet that was rumbling with the snoring of its occupant...

"What the hell...?" Ruby's hand came down over Korra's mouth and she shook her head, pressing a finger to her lips.

"What is it?" Phadian whispered, peering at it. It was too small to be human or elven, and too big to be halfling.

"One way to find out." Mog replied practically as he went off, sat on the sleeping individual, and ripped the pallet away.

The scream that came from it nearly deafened them: "AHHHHHH! MEEPO NO HURT YOU! MEEPO NO HURT ANYONE! DON'T KILL MEEPO! MEEPO NO HURT YOU!"

Mog looked at the kobold with some amount of interest and then said, "Shut up."

"Meepo no hurt! Don't kill Meepo!" It whimpered pathetically.

Mog raised his ax but Phadian stopped him, "Wait! He might know something!"

The Dwarf considered this for a minute, and the nodded, "What are you doing here?"

"I am just the keeper! Just the keeper!" It whined.

"Of what?" Mog demanded.

"Calcrix! Calcrix Meepo's pet! Meepo love Calcrix!"

"And what is Calcrix?" Mog asked.

"Of course! A dragon!"

"And why was it down here?" The Dwarf continued.

"This Calcrix and Meepo's home! But nasty, ugly, smelly Goblins take Calcrix from Meepo!"

"Goblins?" Phadian felt a shiver of fear run down his spine.

"Nasty, dirty, smelly, mean goblins take Calcrix from Meepo!" The creature began to sob.

"How long ago did this happen?" Mog asked.

"Twenty colds!"

"Twenty cold seasons?"

The creature stopped sobbing, though for a moment, and nodded.

"Alright. Tell me what else is here." The Dwarf demanded.

"Well, down that way are the goblins." The kobold pointed back behind him towards one of the doors. "And that way," He pointed to the other, "Is our home!"

"How many of you are there?" Mog asked.

"Eighty families!" The kobold replied proudly, "And mother!"

Korra's curse echoed in the room, "Shit."

"And how many goblins?" Phadian asked.

"Meepo no have idea!"

"I don't think he can help us much further." Mog said as he reached for his ax.

"No!" Phadian yelled, "No! Let's take him along. He might be able to tell us about the layout of this place, including any traps."

"Yes! Meepo help you! You help Meepo find Calcrix and Meepo help!"

"Okay," The Dwarf was clearly displeased by the turn of circumstance, but couldn't argue with it, "Where do those doors lead?"

"The first one is home to the dungeon for Meepo's clan. The second one leads to the Goblins territory."

Mog stood up and walked over to the first door and swung it open without pretense. Sitting inside were three kobold guards sitting in the reek of too many bodies that had been decaying in one place for far too long. They stood up and snarled at the Dwarf even as Meepo shouted at them.

The kobold kept yelling, "Meepo's friends! They help Meepo find Calcrix!"

The first guard shouted, "Shut up, failure!"

It charged and was met in short order with Mog's ax...as was the second and the third...The entire affair took only a few seconds. Mog, apparently unwilling to explore further down that door, closed it again.

Behind him, the kobold was sobbing into the ground, "That was Meepo's first cousin's brother's uncle! He was family!"

The Dwarf shrugged.

"And that leaves door number two!" Korra said with a tense smile.

"Hold on." Ruby said before turning her teal gaze on Meepo, "Are there any traps?"

"Meepo know not. That goblins' home. Not Meepo's."

Ruby sighed as she went over and inspected it and the floor. She found nothing and Maple's search corroborated her original findings.

"Alright." She said as she notched a bolt in her crossbow and opened the door, "Let's go."

The room opened into a narrow hall with three doors on each side. At one time, it had perhaps been the monks' or maids' quarters. Now, there was no telling what might lay behind them...

Mog and Phadian drew straws to determine which door to try first, and the middle door on the right wall was selected. Maple again looked it over and found nothing. Figuring it was safe, Mog opened the door.

Ruby heard the string snap a fraction of a second before a cacophony of bells and sirens began to blare in the deep. She knew exactly what had happened: a string had been affixed to the opposite side of the door and pulled tight. When it broke, it dropped a weight on a line of bells and sounded them.

"Run!" Meepo cried as heavy footfall began to echo in the dark.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter Seven: Shades of Black**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own D and D, but the characters within are the intellectual property of several people. **_

"Get behind the door and line up!" Mog shouted at the three archers, "Matalian and I will cover the door. We open it, you fire, and we close it again. Anything that gets close will have to contend with us before it reaches you. Maple! Cover the back!"

Phadian dropped his bag and slung his quiver over his shoulder in almost the same motion Korra was using to notch an arrow. Next to him, Ruby was lifting her crossbow into position.

"Alright," Mog said as he gripped the door and Matalian pressed himself to the opposite side, "Fire!"

They saw a horde of goblins racing down the hall at them. Behind them, three taller, bulkier creatures were beginning to coalesce from the darkness.

The volley took down the first three and Mog slammed the door shut to give them precious seconds to reload. He opened the door a second later, just as the remaining goblins were trampling over their dead, and they fired again.

This time, though, something came back: A javelin was tossed from far back into the dark. It embedded itself in the floor and suddenly exploded with concussive sound. Ruby and Phadian were thrown to their feet. Korra barely managed to keep her balance, but her arrow went wild, and clattered against the stone somewhere in the hall.

Ruby pushed herself to her knees and took another shot. As she moved to stand, she reloaded another bolt and took aim. Beside her, Phadian was pulling back on the string and sighting one of the taller forms when he realized what they were: Hobgoblins.

He had no time to call out a warning before another shaft rocketed from the dark and impaled Ruby through the chest. She stumbled, dropping her crossbow, and tried to catch herself. A fraction of a second later, it ripped her open as it exploded.

She was tossed bodily against the stone and didn't rise.

"Maple!" Phadian cried as he lined up another target and released the arrow.

It clipped one of the smaller goblins, throwing it to the right where it impaled another through the throat.

Meepo suddenly lifted his finger and chanted something. One of the hobgoblins stumbled and sunk to the ground, tripping several more.

One of the goblins suddenly sprang through the door and sneered at the cleric. It was still wearing that smirk when Matalian's mace threw it back into the dark in a spray of blood. The door slammed again.

The halfling rogue had finally managed to drag the red-headed half elf out of the way and was applying pressure to the gaping wound between her breasts.

"Alright, give them another volley!" Mog cried as he pried open the door.

Phadian dropped the nearest hobgolin and Korra's arrow, though it didn't stop it, managed to slow another.

"Now!" Mog cried as he swept his ax through the door way, hacking down a line of goblins.

Matalian cut through on the Dwarf's right. The second hobgoblin met a quick end at the end of his rapier. At some point, the other goblins began to retreat, leaving their wounded and dead behind. In the turmoil, though, the fighter realized that the hobgoblin that Meepo had dispatched wasn't dead.

He lifted his mace to bring it down, slipped on the gore as he swung down, and struck his own arm full force. His cry of rage and pain was more terrible than the din of the goblins.

"What happened?!" Phadian called from the hallway as he sprinted forward.

He cursed under his breath. He was out of spells for the day and if the goblins decided to try their luck again...

"Draw back!" Mog shouted as he worked his way back to the door.

They closed the door and began discussing how to bar it when Matalian grunted at them to look in his pack. There in the scraps of cloth and bits of food, they found a number of metal spikes and a hammer.

"Perfect." Mog said approvingly as he took them and spiked them against the door to keep it closed.

"I'm out of spells," Phadian told Matalian as he looked at the arm. It wasn't broken, but it was badly dislocated, "And sleeping on that won't be possible."

"Fix it." Matalian grunted.

"We should probably hold you down..." Phadian trailed off.

"We'll take his weapons." Mog said as he picked up the rapier and mace and moved them well out of Matalian's grasp.

"Alright..." Phadian sighed as he helped his friend lay down against the stone. He braced his foot against the man's broad ribcage and yanked.

Matalian retaliated with instinctual rage: his head snapped to the right and he bit, hard and deep, into Phadian's calf.

The cleric took the abuse without so much as a whimper. He patiently waited for the pain to ease and for the man's grip to loosen before he lowered the relocated limb and walked away to settle down against the rock to try and sleep. And there, on the fringes of sleep, he began to wonder if they even stood a chance against the darkness brewing beneath the sunless citadel.

* * *

Throughout the night, he heard the sound of hammers working against spikes and the muffled squabbling of goblins...no doubt fortifying their defenses and laying traps...

* * *

In the morning he rose and prayed, healed his companions, and began to consider their options. It would be too dangerous to walk through a corridor they knew was rigged, and even more so given the fact that a much larger horde wouldn't be far down into those dungeons.

Eventually, he proposed that they back-track not to the main room, but back to the room of spheres. Korra and Ruby both looked at him like he had just started speaking a different language, but were ultimately won over by the idea of avoiding another conflict with the goblins.

It took them a little over two hours, moving deliberately and slowly. After all, the kobolds knew they were there, too...

* * *

"I'm not touching one." Korra stated resolutely as she stared at the glowing spheres on the floor.

Phadian said nothing in response as he knelt down beside one, took a deep breath, and picked it up. The glowing blue ember in it began to shine, but it wasn't followed by the shriek of evil this time.

"They appear to be safe now." He said.

Korra approached him with a look of cautious disbelief, but couldn't deny that he had no trouble handling them.

"We should take them with us." The cleric said as he pulled a spare set of clothes from his bag and wrapped them. "I can't fit all of them in my bag, though."

The Ranger shrugged as she pulled a shirt from her bag and let the cleric wrap the orb and slide it into her pack. Matalian and Maple also elected to take one each.

They had just started talking about where they thought they should go next when something skittered in the dark. The group froze as they stared deep into the endless night.

"We shouldn't stay here." Mog finally said. "We can go this way."

He pointed down the end of the hall to the narrow hall where Phadian had fallen into the spike pit.

"There's a trap, though." He told them.

"Where?" Ruby asked.

"You tell me. I want to see how good you." He smiled.

Ruby resisted the urge to backhand him and instead walked through the door. She inspected the floor inch by inch, and couldn't find anything. She was in the middle of a step when Mog's hand suddenly knotted in her belt and she was yanked back...just as the ground beneath her gave.

She landed on her feet, if just barely, and glared hard at the Dwarf.

"Care to try disabling it?" He asked pointedly.

The rogue said nothing as she slung her pack off of her back and dug into it for her toolkit. She must have been there for almost fifteen minute trying to disable it before she invited Maple over to check her work. The halfing agreed that it was disarmed.

"Nothing left but to test it." Ruby said to herself as she pressed her foot against the mechanism.

The pit opened with an echoing 'bang'.

"Sorry..." Maple muttered sheepishly from behind her.

"I doubt we'll be able to do much about this one." Ruby replied as she inspected the wall.

There simply weren't enough handholds to allow for even her to climb. The stone had been worn almost completely smooth by the slow drip of water against it.

"Well, there's no other way then." Mog said as he pulled a length of rope from his back. "Throw me."

"What?" Phadian gasped.

"Throw me." He repeated. "We know the ledge over there doesn't give, at least."

Phadian had just opened his mouth to protest when Matalian's massive hands came down on the Dwarf's shoulders. In one smooth motion, he lifted him and tossed him.

Mog managed to land on his feet, if just barely, and threw the end of the rope back to them.

"Your turn." He smiled as he braced the rope against his waist.

"This is crazy." Korra said, even as she gripped the rope and bent her knees.

She took a step back and pushed off the ground hard. As she sailed over the pit, Mog gave a pull on the rope. She was flung against the ledge, coming down hard on her knees, but smiled and gave her group a thumbs up as she stood.

Ruby went next and started inspecting the door. She finally reached the point where they had to move before anyone else could make the leap. She opened the door, peered into the dark, and motioned that it was safe.

* * *

The room had two doors and, as Mog was kind enough to point out, a third hidden one. He called Ruby over from the other two and had her inspect it.

"What do you think?" He asked.

"It's rigged," She replied as she pulled a tool from her back, "But I think I can disable it."

She tinkered at it for several minutes before deciding that it was safe. Gently, she put her fingertips against the stone and moved it to the side. As it clicked upwards and she started to rotate it, she heard something recoil in the stone.

Before she could pull back, she felt a sharp jab against her thumb. She yanked her hand back wordlessly and inspected the pad of it. Bright red blood oozed up from the puncture.

Mog, who had already opened the door and was walking through it, noticed nothing.

Ruby told the others it was safe to go through and realized she was beginning to sweat. The red hair on the nape of her neck was uncomfortably damp, her skin slick.

"There's a ladder." Mog said from the other room.

There were no doors in the room, but the ladder seemed to lead to a lower level.

"Think we should?" Korra asked.

"Meepo? Do you know where this goes?" Phadian asked.

"Meepo don't know. Meepo never been this far." The kobold responded.

"I'll check it first." Maple offered as she began inspecting it.

To the best of her ability to tell, it wasn't rigged. The ladder was a little rusted, but didn't seem structurally compromised.

"Might as well, then." Korra said.

In the background, Matalian carefully prepared a torch and, with the gentle sparking of a flint, lit it. He held it down into the tunnel for a moment before nodding to the halfling.

Maple went down first and realized the ladder ended in a narrow tunnel that led into the dark. Creeping forward, though, she could see that it terminated in another ladder at the end of a small alcove.

"It's clear." She stated, inviting Mog down.

The Dwarf grumbled as he climbed down. His broad shoulders certainly didn't make for an easy crawl, but he got to the other side. Matalian and Phadian followed in single file before Meepo and Korra climbed down. Ruby, who had volunteered to cover the rear, went last.

It wasn't until she went to grip the rail that the shaking hit her. Even controlling her breathing didn't ease the tremors.

With a long, unsteady sigh, she climbed down. On the other side, Maple was already beginning to scout. Korra was working the other side of the room. It was laid with the some, odd red-veined white marble. The stones that were whole seemed to ripple underneath the group's footsteps. The broken ones, though, didn't.

In the middle of the room was a massive sarcophagus with an inlay of a dragon. It seemed to be flying up from the onyx rock of the body of the casket. Surrounding it, clamping lid to base, were a number of rusted fixtures.

There were two pits in the room; one in the ceiling that opened up far into the dark, and another in the floor. Even Mog couldn't see the bottom of it. And, most weird of all, there was a torch made of green flames that flickered, set against the wall.

Ruby took a seat next to the wall and tried not too look as weak as she felt. She wasn't sure as long as she had been there before she looked up and found Phadian standing over her.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

"Fine." She replied, though it lacked the usual vitriol.

"Okay..." He trailed off.

"What do you make of this?" Mog asked Matalian off to the side. The casket seemed to be...rippling...but there was some text, faint and nearly worn past reading, against the base of the lid.

"I don't know what it says." The Dwarf finally told them, "It looks like Draconian."

Ruby forced herself up, "I speak Draconian."

The rogue walked over, but even with the Dwarf pointing at the writing, it took several minutes for her to find it and even longer for her to make out the script.

"Brothers we were...Brother, you died." She told them as she stood up.

"So...think we should open it?" Maple asked.

"Hold on," Phadian said, "Why would someone _clamp _a casket shut?"

Mog pondered that for a moment before responding, "Probably to dissuade tomb robbers. Who knows what kinds of treasure a war hero would be laid to rest with."

"I'm all for it." Korra said bluntly.

"Same here." Maple broke in.

"Let's do it, then." Ruby replied.

Between them, it took only a few minutes to shatter the rusted clamps and, with Mog and Matalian's help, forced the lid to the floor. It landed hard enough to crack the tile at their feet, echoing around them for a long moment.

There was a body inside of impossible size: almost nine feet tall and with an arm span that was almost ten feet. It looked like it had been an Elf at some point but now...it was like time and nature had conspired to morph it into something horrible...Flesh invaded by vine and root...

Among the rags shone gold, silver, and gems. Scrolls of parchment were wrapped and tied with red ribbons and placed at the head and feet of the creature. In its hand, it clutched a staff almost as tall as a walking stick. It was gold in-lay, dotted with gems, and formed to resemble, vaguely, a tree in blossom.

"Dibs on that." Korra said simply as she grabbed it.

Ruby and Matalian saw it move first: the eyes opened to reveal oddly colored green and orange speckled eyes. It sat up, let out a grunt that sounded something like the wind howling through the trees at night, and stood up...

Maple reacted almost instinctively: she snatched a handful of gold and bolted to to the other side of the room. Out of his peripherals, Phadian saw her disappear into the shadows and Meepo cower back against the far wall.

Matalian took the first swing, his mace sinking deep. But when he pulled back, the skin around it quivered and drew back in.

"It's...a type of...Troll..." Mog trailed off as he took a startled step back.

"Move!" Phadian shouted as he notched an arrow and took aim.

In the same fraction of a second, the monstrosity threw its arm forward. Korra went flying, striking the wall behind it and barely managing to avoid rolling into the pit. Phadian shifted on his feet, coming to stand in front of her and taking the first shot.

The arrow struck it under the chin. The thing ripped the arrow out, threw it to the floor, and turned its obscene gaze on the cleric. It lifted its arm, staff in hand, and grunted something unintelligible.

Ruby lined up her shot, taking a knee to stabilize herself, when she heard something horrible.

It echoed up from the cutout in the ceiling, a voice laughing hysterically in Draconian: "Fresh meat! Meat to eat!"

The creature that flew out was about the size of a large house cat, gray in color and emaciated...like it had been starving down in the dark for years...Its skin was stretched tight over bulging bones, its lips pulled back to reveal rows and rows of needlepoint teeth, its claws were larger even than its faintly elven head.

A quasit.

'_How did he find me? How...Why?!' _Ruby felt bile rise in her throat as it dove down and came down hard on Matalian.

Its claws sank deep and its teeth ripped into the back of Matalian's throat. He gave a strangled cry, fell forward, and didn't move.

The quasit circled back into the air, laughing hysterically.

Ruby lifted her arm, took aim, and fired. The bolt struck the quasit under its wing, ripping the thin membrane.

The troll-like monster, seeing her move, suddenly turned on her. It swung down at her hard, catching her against her shoulder and forcing to the floor. Ruby's vision bled red as her skull struck the ground hard enough to draw blood, and for a moment, she was drowning in a sea of color and senseless sound.

She came to after a moment, found her crossbow, and took aim at the quasit as it swept down at Korra. It landed hard against her back, finding the flesh of her shoulders with its talons and making an attempt at her throat.

"Get the hell off me!" Korra screamed as she twisted, throwing the monster off of herself. She barely managed to keep her balance and swung at it hard as it flew up, but missed.

Mog, seeing his chance as the troll-monster turned on Korra, took a flying leap at it. His weight and momentum sent the creature to the floor. He lifted his ax, beheaded it, and kept hacking at it.

"What are you doing?" Phadian cried as he tried to keep his eyes on the quasit.

"It's a troll-type. If we don't burn it, it won't stop getting back up!" The Dwarf cried back.

Phadian eyed the torch, which had rolled well out of Matalian's reach, and sprinted for it. He grabbed it, sliding against the slick marble, and managed to keep his footing. Pushing off against the tile, he ran over to Mog and began lighting the bloody areas of the creature.

"Is Matalian okay?" Ruby shouted as she lined up another shot. She took it, hit it in the shoulder, and watched it rip the bolt out and drop it to the floor.

Out of the shadows, Maple appeared beside Matalian and leaned down next to him. Her hand went for his throat, to check for his pulse, and she found nothing but a gaping, blood hole. She tried to turn him over, found he was dead weight, and realized suddenly that he was gone...Beneath her fingertips, the cold tile was already robbing his body of its warmth.

"He's gone!" She called, stepping back into the shadows.

Ruby felt something like a needle twist in her chest and fought the tears trying to seep into her eyes. In a moment, she knew as she loaded another bolt, the sadness would turn to anger.

By the time she lifted her arm to take the shot, there was nothing but rage. She pulled the trigger, watched it clip the quasit, and saw as it suddenly stopped flying and hovered in the air.

It opened its mouth obscenely wide and let loose with a horrible shriek. Maple and Meepo screamed, tears in their eyes, as the panic rose up in them. They bolted back down the ladder and started scrambling down the tunnel. Phadian and Korra both dropped to their knees, shaking, before the fear seized them. Both of them, in a wild panic, tried to jump the open pit.

"NO!" Ruby shouted as she started running.

The quasit laughed suddenly, shouting at her, "See you later!" before it spiraled back into the darkness.

Ruby took one more frantic shot at it and watched the bolt fly past it and disappear into the dark.

At the bottom of the pit, Korra and Phadian splashed into something dark and sticky: oil. As she began to kick frantically to the surface, Korra felt her foot hook on something and heard the pull of a lever.

Above them, a door began to open and a mechanized arm started to jerk forward. It held a torch in its clawed hand.

"No!" Phadian cried out in panic as it dropped.

It wasn't until it flipped over that he realized, with relief so intense he almost vomited, that it had long since been cold.

"Fuck..." Korra trailed off as she paddled harder.

"We're coming for you!" She heard Ruby shout from above them.

It was a good thirty feet up, but at least now they knew why Mog couldn't see the bottom: the oil appeared like the endless eternal night around them.

A rope came spinning down from the top of the pit, knotted at several intervals. Korra went first, slowly creeping her way up the rope until Phadian saw Ruby's silhouette as the rogue leaned over to drag her up.

He tried next, slipping and falling back in. For a moment, he couldn't tell which way was up and had a flash of gut-wrenching panic that he might catch himself in the lines down there and drown in that oil...His feet kicked up instinctively and he found himself gasping, disoriented, at the surface as another line was tossed down.

They hauled him up and for a few minutes, he just laid on the tile. He saw Ruby offer Korra a spare set of traveler's pants to clean up with, and take her other shirt and lay it over Matalian's face. When he finally caught his breath, he stood up and walked over to the remains of the troll.

It was nothing but a pile of gray ash now, which he used liberally to soak up the oil on his skin.

After a moment, when the reality of it hit him, he walked over to the body of his friend and kneeled down at his side. His shaking hands grasped the man's shoulders and he shook him; gently, at first, and then harder and harder.

The sob rose up in his throat before he could stop it and he yelled, angry and devastated and alone, high into the cold dungeons.

"Not yet!" Korra said, taking the cleric by his robes and holding him, "Ehlonna can make this right."

"You're right!" He said, the light returning to his eyes as he wiped away the dirty tears, "You're right! In the morning, we can pray to her again."

* * *

In the morning, Phadian saw Meepo finish something near Matalian's body. He felt a flash of desire to protect his body...In death, he looked almost...small...vulnerable...But he stopped himself and realized that Meepo had simply cleaned him up and wrapped him.

"What did you do?" He finally asked.

"Prepared him." Meepo replied.

"For?"

"Whatever comes next." The kobold told him.

Phadian swallowed hard and nodded at Korra. He knelt down next to her and began to pray; Korra chanted in sync with him and when he opened his eyes, everything had washed away.

The room had faded to a kind of glistening white, like snow on the hill, and standing before him was a tall, beautiful woman. Her long blonde hair was trailing down her back, a circlet of silver dotted with white stones across her forehead. Her eyes were a violet so bright and mysterious they almost hurt to look at. Her robes, shifting in color like opal, trailed out behind her.

"Are you Ehlonna?" He asked, his lips quivering.

Her smile suddenly died, "You doubt who I am?"

"Please, my goddess, a comrade of ours has fallen in the name of good. He was one of your own, a creature of nature."

"He has the soul of a beast, but wears the skin of a man." The goddess responded as her eyes drifted to the wrapped corpse that seemed to float in space beside them.

"Please, please bring him back." Phadian pleaded.

"And why should I concern myself with a son of Thor?"

"He was a good man! He died doing good things. He was trying to help us." Korra told her, tears gathering in her eyes.

"I'm begging you, my goddess, do not forsake him to death. Do not abandon him."

For the flash of an instant, Phadian wondered if he wasn't begging to be saved himself...

Ehlonna's eyes narrowed, "What of the hare in the forest who is caught by the fox? The woman who dies in childbirth? Have I abandoned them, too? I was with them at the beginning, at the end, and everything between and after."

"My goddess, I need him...We need him." Phadian responded.

Ehlonna stepped over to the body and tapped its forehead gently. Something effervescent began to filter up from it, eventually taking Matalian's shape.

"Ask him, then, Phadian Gess, what he desires." Ehlonna told him.

Phadian turned his eyes on his friend and asked, "Do you want to come back?"

"I've seen Valhalla." the soul of Matalian responded, "How could I go to back to anything less?"

"You said you would help me." Phadian swallowed hard, "Help me, and I will help you find Valhalla again."

Ehlonna's hand came down on his forehead against Matalian's forehead. The soul suddenly lost its shape and seemed to evaporate. In the same graceful, gliding motion, she did the same to Korra. And Phadian was left alone.

"You would help him find that primitive place again?" She asked him.

"It's his choice. Not mine." Phadian responded. He opened his mouth to say more, but found that his goddess had disappeared and he was kneeling against the cold tile.

A tear slid down his face as he stared into nothingness.

Behind him, Meepo slipped Korra a small vial of blood and walked back towards the still body.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter 8: Cancer **_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own D and D but the characters within are the intellectual property of several people. **_

"What happened?" Ruby asked.

"I don't think we're going to get any help from her." Korra responded truthfully as she tucked the small vial of blood into her backpack.

The red-haired rogue sank back against the stone and held her head wearily in one palm. The tears would come later, maybe. Right now, there was just the aching void. He had taken care of her, tended her wounds...She had hoped to be able to repay that debt in some way.

* * *

In the morning, if it even was morning above the perpetual dark, they moved back into the hallway that bridged the junction between the kobold and goblin territories. They debated on what to do for a very long time before Phadian turned to Mog and asked him to question Meepo on his opinion.

The dwarf grunted and did as he was asked, coming back with the response: "He thinks we should head further down into kobold territory."

"Why?" Phadian asked.

"He said his queen is certain to help us because we are questing to regain Calcrix." Mog told him.

"How well received is he by his queen?" The cleric responded.

Mog turned back to the creature and grunted out another few sentences. There was a frantic reply from the kobold and another word or two from the dwarf before he turned back.

"He says he and the queen are on excellent terms."

"Why do I not believe that?" Korra sighed.

"I really don't care to expose myself to the entirety of a kobold clan." Ruby agreed from the corner.

"What do you think, Map...le..." Phadian trailed off and tried to remember that last time he had seen the halfling, "Where is Maple?"

"Shit..." Korra trailed off, "Do you think she's okay?"

"She's just fine." The dwarf growled back as finished rummaging through his back, "Most of our gold, however, is gone."

"That bitch." The Ranger hissed.

Ruby sighed dejectedly and rubbed at her aching temple, "What now?"

"We find her and throttle her?" Korra asked hopefully.

The red-haired rogue laughed dryly, "She's long gone."

"Let's go back." Phadian said finally, "I'll take the kobolds sooner than the goblins."

* * *

"This stupid thing again?" Korra sighed as she inspected the fountain.

"The Mephit said she was captured to produce water..." Ruby trailed off as she grabbed Matalian's flask, one of the many items they had taken, and poured it into the basin.

"Let me." Phadian said, "No need to waste our water."

He spread his arms and cast his spell, but nothing happened...He cleared his throat and tried again to no avail.

"Are you okay?" Korra asked.

Phadian turned away and began muttering something under his breath. He carefully went over every word, down to the breeziness of the vowels, and realized that he hadn't made a mistake in the incantation...

Ruby turned away from him and added her own flask to the basin. Korra quickly contributed hers and as Mog emptied his, the dragon carved in the marble suddenly stilled.

"Alright...now what?" Korra asked, staring at it.

Phadian turned back to the group and knelt down beside the fountain to begin brushing away the dust and grime with his sleeve. He quickly realized the scrabbling into the stone wasn't random, but he couldn't read it.

"It's Draconic." Mog told him as he inspected it, though he lacked the skill to read it.

"I speak it." Ruby told them as she crouched down beside it.

"It says: Let there be fire."

The carved dragon suddenly sprang to life, its eyes flaring with light as the marble maw opened and a thick, red fluid flowed into the basin.

"Well, now we're getting somewhere!" Korra smiled, "Now what?"

Mog shrugged practically as he held his torch over the red liquid. Nothing happened.

"Alright." He dipped his finger into the liquid and brought it to the tip of his tongue.

It was an odd sensation, a little like the fizz of beer, but bitter. No numbness or pain followed, and he waited a few minutes before telling them.

"What about this door?" Korra asked, staring at another bass-relief of a dragon in red-veined marble on the other door.

It turned suddenly, its cold marble eyes locked on Phadian, and uttered something dark. Ruby quickly translated it for them: "Channel good and open the way."

"What does that mean?" Korra sighed.

"It could mean anything..." Phadian trailed off.

Ruby stood in front of it for a moment and repeated a long string of words. Those around her had no way of knowing she was merely trying anything that came to mind. When that failed, she attempted to pick the lock only to find that no mortal instrument would do it.

"It's likely magical." She finally told them, "We should track back to the hallway with the monks' cells and see if there's a way around."

Korra shrugged and started walking back down the hall. She waited for the others to catch up before she summarily opened one door as Ruby opened the other.

The red-haired rogue was bowled over by a giant rat. The creature's weight came down full on her chest and it ripped deep into her shoulder. In that same moment, as Korra turned back, she saw something beginning to creep from the rubble.

The skeleton dragged itself up and began to lumber at her, sneering darkly and groping for her. It was badly damaged, which slowed it considerably, but even with that she had no time to turn back and help the rogue.

Ruby attempted to kick it off of her just as one of Phadian's arrow struck it. The creature retaliated with a swipe of its claws across her thigh as it reared up. Seeing her chance, she fumbled for her dagger only to have the rat sink its teeth into her arm.

Behind her, she heard Korra call for help as she swung her staff down hard. Mog rushed in with his ax and there was a sound like cracking twigs. A moment later, he raced out from the cell and sank his ax into the rat. It gave a horrible shriek before toppling over, twitching, and finally dying.

"Shit! Are you okay?" Korra asked as she helped Ruby to her feet.

The rogue looked over her wounds and nodded. They hurt, and infection was a real possibility, but they weren't imminently fatal.

"Care to help her?" The Ranger asked pointedly as she turned to Phadian.

The cleric nodded sheepishly and began chanting. A moment later, he stopped, stared at the rogue in confusion, and tried again.

"What seems to be the problem?" Korra asked, eyeing the still bloody and ragged wounds.

Phadian mumbled something to himself and turned away from the group.

"Look, let's head back to that door. I don't think any of these are going to link up." The elven Ranger finally said.

Mog and Ruby agreed, though Phadian was strangely quiet, and they began walking down the hall.

* * *

Phadian began rummaging around in his pack for a kit of herbs. As he began pulling out his spare clothes and moving around the various odd bits and pieces in there, he realized, too late, what he kept at the bottom of his bag.

Shining up from the bag was a polished oval of glass...and the twisted mass of scar tissue that was his face. The corner of his lip was pulled up horribly, his eye was rimmed with bright red flesh, and everything between, from his temple to his clavicle, was an expanse of blistered skin. His eyes drifted against his will to his hand, his arm, and he realized, were the same...

Korra, deep in conversation with Ruby over the meaning of a set of glyphs carved into the door in front of them, suddenly turned her attention to the priest as Ruby moved to open the door. It wasn't until Ruby had unlocked the door, though, that she realized something was wrong: He was shaking hard, staring blankly into his bag, and gasping for air.

She turned her attention back to the door in time to see Ruby dodge two scythe blades as they fell from the ceiling and carved long grooves into the floor. The rogue picked herself up, and, seeing Korra motion for her, asked Mog to begin checking the floor.

"Hey, Phadian!" Korra called, "Are you okay?"

The cleric didn't respond.

"_Cleric,_" Ruby said firmly as she stepped away from the door to allow Mog into it, "Are you alright?"

When he failed to reply, the rogue took a step forward and reached for his shoulder. In the same instant, he shouted at her, "Don't touch me!"

"Phadian!" Korra yelled, "Snap out of it!"

Ruby narrowed her eyes, and slapped him hard. He fell to the side, his bag dropping from his grasp. Dazed, he pushed himself up on his forearm, glanced at her, and walked over to a nearby corner. He sat down, folded his hands, and began to pray.

Ruby, sighing, walked back and peered into the room over Mog's shoulder. It was an almost oval-shaped alcove lined with candles who's green flames danced against the onyx of the stone. There were five sarcophagi on the floor, each carved with a dragon in different poses.

"What is it?" Korra asked.

"A burial room, apparently." The Dwarf responded matter-of-factly.

The lid on one of them suddenly slid to the side, and fell over to reveal a bony hand.

* * *

She appeared before him, much to his surprise. Though her bothering to show did nothing but excite his already boiling anger. In the white space that comprised the dimensions between earth and the divine, she walked forward and asked, "What is it that you would have of me, Phadian Gess?"

"You abandoned me!" He shouted, angry tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. "How am I supposed to serve you when my face incites panic?!"

"You will be a better cleric if you can inspire hope in spite of your visage." The goddess responded.

"You have forsaken me to this dungeon, stolen Artok from me, and taken my only other friend." He spat, "How can you call yourself a loving goddess?!"

"You think me cruel," She told him, "But I would not test you beyond your limits."

"How dare you test me, at all!" He shouted back, "Again and again and again, I rise to serve you only to have you knock me back! I was a high priest only a few months ago and now you have stripped me down to the level of a church initiate! And then you dare to treat me like one!"

"Everything has a reason. Your coming here, and the circumstances surrounding it, are not mere coincidence. There is unfinished business here, and I'm trusting you to put an end to the evil festering in this foul place. There is one like you in the darkness."

"One like me?" Phadian's anger abated.

"I'm charging you with seeking him out." Ehlonna told him.

"Then you cannot ask me to do it alone! Please, Holy Ehlonna, at least give me back Matalian."

"When will you see that you are not alone? But if this is what you require, I will try. His soul resides with Thor, and I can make no promises."

"I understand." He told her.

"Be well, my child, and be secure in my love." She told him, pressing a ghostly kiss to his temple.

The warmth of her lips hadn't even faded from his skin when he was plunged back into the darkness of the dungeon. In front of him, he saw Ruby jump back from the door.

Standing, he prayed to Ehlonna and felt her divine magic flood through him. He approached the rogue in a trance, reaching out for her.

"What are you doing?" Ruby shouted as she ducked under him.

She felt her heart begin to hammer in her chest. A moment ago, he had been lost to all, and now he was trying to touch her? She wondered to herself if something other than Ehlonna had met with him, poisoned him..._possessed _him...

"Holy Ehlonna tasked me with a job, and I will complete it." He told her simply, reaching for her again.

Ruby rolled to the left, shouting at him to get his act together as Korra screamed. A ball of fire rolled across the ground, like a living thing, and up onto her. It burst into a flare of heat, sending her to the ground with a shriek.

"Undead!" Mog shouted as he was thrown from the doorway by a burst of fire.

Another flaming orb danced out from the doorway and rode up on Phadian's back. It burst as it settled on his shoulder blades and the force of it threw him forward.

"Get your act together!" Ruby hissed as she grabbed his robe to keep him upright.

She was jolted by the sudden rush of magic that infused her. The wounds on her arm and shoulder pulled together, leaving nothing but a drying smear of blood, and she realized he hadn't been trying to hurt her. He had been trying to heal her...

She opened her mouth to say something when a small metal shaft dug itself deep into her back. She spun back around in time to see three more silver flashes flicker out of the room and bury themselves into Mog's armor chest piece.

She took a step backwards, out of the line of sight of the skeletons in the doorway, and into the shadows as one started to crawl forward.

Phadian, realizing for the first time what was happening, began to chant a turning spell. He was interrupted, however, when he was forced to dive out of the way of a wave of acid.

"I'll distract them!" Korra yelled as she righted herself and charged into the room.

Her bo staff came down hard on the first one, cracking bone but failing to shatter it. She twisted away from it just as it reached up to touch her and rolled out of the way of Phadian's line of vision. He quickly chanted the words, cast the spell, and watched as two of the skeletons shuddered, wheezed, and went limp against the ground.

"Keep it up!" She yelled as she darted away from another skeletal hand.

Phadian smiled at her, chanted, and let Ehlonna's divine power fill him.

* * *

"There's some gold here." Korra said as she looted around the sarcophagi. With the skeletons reduced to...skeletons, it was easy and rewarding work. Among them, she had already found several scrolls, a few pieces of platinum, some glass whistles, and a number of gold coins.

To her left, Ruby was translating a Draconic script that turned out to be more of eulogy than anything else. Apparently, the priests, at their deathbeds, had requested they be interred in the monastery against intruders. How they came to their end, and what had happened to the citadel, however, wasn't explained.

"I doubt there's anything left here, then." Phadian told them as he took count of the gold and divided it among the group for carrying.

They closed the door behind them, and found the magic of the lock still worked. It was unlikely anyone else would get in there.

About thirty minutes into the dungeon, they found another door. It was hidden by magic, and it was only because Mog happened near it at the right moment that they found it at all. It appeared out of the dark like rising mist, forming the marble caricature of a dragon in purple-veined marble; As they approached it, it hissed something. Ruby spoke back to it for a number of minutes before its maw opened with a shiver and the door turned in.

The room was made laid, floor to ceiling, with black marble veined in deep red. The tiles didn't seem to move the way the others did, Mog noted as he stepped across it to check the floor. Ruby worked the walls over, checking for traps, before they met at the far edge of the room. Carved into the wall in the same stone was a dragon head that mimicked a wraith rising from the sea.

It said something in Draconic and Ruby pondered it for a moment before turning to the group, "It says: Let there death."

Without warning, the maw of the creature opened and began spewing black smoke into the room. Phadian received the worst of it, stumbling back and choking on the foul taste.

"What is it doing?!" Korra yelled as she took a step back, her arm thrown over her mouth.

"I don't know." Ruby replied as she buried her nose in her cloak.

Phadian tried to wheeze something at them, gasped for air, and fell to the ground.

Korra cursed as she dropped to her knees and crawled forward. Grabbing his cloak as Ruby hooked her arm under his, she dragged him forward. As they crept out of the room, Mog closed the door. It sealed itself and faded back into nothingness.

"What's wrong with him?" Korra asked as she looked him over.

"We don't have time to figure it out in the open." The Dwarf said, suggesting they withdraw four rooms back to a small cell with only one door. It opened out into the hallway they were already standing in, which lessened the chance for unpleasant surprises.

They worked in twos, carrying the cleric as Ruby or Mog moved ahead to scout for enemies and newly erected traps. It took almost an hour, but eventually they were able to bunker down, staking the door shut, and settled in for the night.

Ruby, on first watch, quickly noticed that Phadian was growing feverish. He was sweating, but the droplets were oily and black...and turned to stone when they fell from him...He moaned every so often in his sleep, and she would reassure him quietly, arrange the furs around him, and wait for the next watch.

* * *

The visions were confusing and terrifying. He saw things dancing in the dark, swimming in the black disorder. Sounds occasionally echoed up from them and it seemed like hours before they began to clear...He saw a dragon rising from the water and holding in its claws a glowing orb. It seemed to explode forward into another dragon and twined with the black serpent. As it faded, he heard a howl thunder in the distance. He watched from a distance as a castle was struck by...by a magic so powerful that he had no words for it. It rent the ground like a dagger of the gods and he heard the stone creak and shatter as the ground around it caved. The screams died away as the image rippled into oblivion. From the black, something else came: several clerics muttering something he could understand...the words sent shivers down his spine, made him sweat...and before he could see more, they disappeared like paper in flame. Another image flickered to life and it took him a long moment to realize who it was: Korra. She was in the agony of birth, screaming and bearing down. He watched as she delivered not an infant, but an egg. He saw it erupt in a spray of shell into a dragon that slinked back into the darkness. The images burst forward until he was staring into the lifeless void of Ruby's eyes. Her body was jarred gently and it wasn't until the image widened, became certain, that he saw the dragon pull its head from her ripped chest to lip its bloody lips. Beside her was the body of Mog, torn to gory pieces. His hand , cold and dead, was still clutching his ax. The visions tumbled in on themselves until he was standing before a dragon with two heads...and watched as it was eaten by a many-headed serpent.

* * *

"He really doesn't look good..." Korra trailed off as she mopped at his forehead with a spare rag.

"His fever is starting to abate, at least." Ruby told her as she prepared to settle in for the night.

"Do you think-"

The Ranger's question was interrupted when the fabric of her pack split open. And suddenly, standing naked in front of them, was Matalian...

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter Nine **_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own D and D! And, yes, the characters within are still intellectual property! LOL!**_

"Fuck!" Korra gasped as she stepped back from him.

Matalian's primal gaze fell on the cleric, "I want _him_."

"Let's cool it there, big boy." Korra told him, her voice tight despite her best efforts, "Our cleric isn't feeling so hot."

"I don't care! I'm going to kill him!"

"Why?" Korra asked.

"He brought me back!" Matalian growled.

"Well, actually, Ehlonna brought you back..." The ranger began gently, only to be cut off.

"Then I'll take it to her, _through _him!"

Ruby stepped forward, taking a stand over the cleric as Korra stepped in front of her, and said, "Didn't your god have to agree to it, too, then?"

Matalian opened his mouth to say something, stopped, thought for a moment, and replied, "I suppose you're right."

"It's good to have you back," Korra smiled, "What with the dragon issue and all."

"I'm not fighting a dragon!" Matalian growled, "I'm going to find an honorable death and return to Valhalla!"

"Well...isn't...fighting a dragon kind of an honorable death?" The ranger asked.

Matalian thought for a moment and smiled, "I hadn't thought of it that way!"

"Well...great!" Korra smirked, "Did you want your stuff back?"

"Did you keep my pretties?" He asked eagerly.

"Uhh..." Korra began rooting around in the destroyed remains of her bag for a small satchel of beads and trophies, "These guys?"

Matalian took the leather pouch from her and took a seat in the corner. Methodically, he poured them out in front of him, arranged them, and began braiding his hair.

"Do you want some help there?" Korra asked after a moment.

He stopped, thought about it, and nodded. The ranger shrugged at Mog and walked over to him. She began braiding his hair in the back and would stop every so often so he could shake his head. He would then give the okay for her to continue or ask that she arrange an ornament. How long the ritual went on, neither Ruby nor Mog were sure. After a while, Matalian began going through his items, again, and found a chunk of dried meat. Making a fire, he set a pot to boil, and began picking through his herbs.

"Are you sure he isn't going to poison us?" Ruby whispered sardonically as she started rolling her sleeping pallet out.

"I don't think so..." Korra trailed off as she watched him sample the broth.

"Wake me if anything happens." The rogue finally told her as she laid her head down and closed her eyes.

* * *

Phadian could hardly breathe...it felt like he was being crushed. For a long moment, he fought to open his eyes, afraid of what he might see, and then gasped. He wasn't sure whether he should be relieved that it was just Matalian, crouched on his chest and glaring at him, or afraid for his life...the man was holding his mace in his other hand.

"_You_ did this to me!" He bellowed.

"I'-m so—rry..." Phadian gasped, fighting to catch a full breath.

"You're _going _to be." Matalian growled.

"That's _enough!_" Korra snapped as she sat up in her pallet.

Beside her, Ruby reached for her dagger, and tucked it close to her chest. As Korra separated the two, Ruby eyes Matalian's back and debated killing him for the safety of the group...it wasn't until he settled in another corner and began ladling out soup that she loosened her grip on the blade.

"Are you okay?" Korra asked as she helped Phadian sit up.

"I think so..." He told her, his eyes trailing across the room, "I think...I saw something..."

As he recounted his feverish dreams, he saw Ruby's face blanch and Korra's lips thin into a grim line. Mog, strangely silent even for his nature, began sharpening his ax against the far wall.

"Well...at least we're on to whatever happened to this place..." The ranger finally sighed as she leaned back on her hands. Despite the night of sleep, she felt strangely fatigued.

"Are you up to moving on today?" Mog asked the cleric as he began pulling out bits and pieces of metal to fashion into armor for the man.

"I think so." Phadian told him.

Matalian grunted as he shoved a bowl of broth at him, splashing his robes unceremoniously. Phadian, catching the bowl in one hand, sighed and tried not to be frustrated. He wondered if he had done the right thing in asking Ehlonna to bring him back at all...He couldn't deny it had been selfish. He was afraid, and very much alone...And now he prayed his friend didn't hate him for what he had done...

* * *

They started to move on down the hall, coming to another set of doors that might have been at one time the cells of the monks living there. It was hard to say, though the fact it was a wooden door without a good lock seemed to imply as much.

"Care to take a shot at it?" Korra asked the rogue.

"I don't need to." Ruby told her as she snapped the rusted metal loop off.

She crouched low to the ground, reaching for her crossbow, as she pushed the door open. The reek that came back did not bode well. As she looked into the dark, she saw several desiccated, mutilated bodies laying on the floor in a mess of broken arrows and daggers and filthy cloth. In the middle of the room, near where the far wall had crumbled into debris and darkness, was a giant nest...

Something peered up from the nest with beady eyes and slick teeth. All too late, Phadian cried out as two dire rats charged from the sides. The first came down hard on Ruby, its weight carrying her back into Mog. The second clamped down hard on Korra's stomach, shaking her viciously.

Phadian reached out instinctively, grabbing the Ranger by her shoulders and pulling her close as he stabbed down hard on the rat's head. It reared up with a shriek and turned on him, catching him in the shoulder with its teeth.

Beside him, Mog rolled out from beneath Ruby as the rogue's arm was sliced open by the rat. She yelled something unintelligible as she kicked up into its gut. The attack winded the rodent, and she was able to squirm away from it. Rising to her feet, she pulled her dagger only to have the thing bite deep into her thigh.

Her balance upset, she dropped the dagger to catch herself in almost the same moment Matalian's mace smashed into the creature's ribcage. The rat was sent flying back, and its dying yell forced the second one back into the nest.

"Watch out!" Korra yelled as something massive rose from the nest.

It was a dire rat, huge in size...almost twice as large as the other two, and clearly angry. It charged at them, meeting Matalian's rapier in the doorway. The force of his step forward threw Ruby into Korra, and they both went down as Phadian righted himself.

"What are you doing?!" He yelled at the man.

Matalian grunted in response as he continued to beat at the monstrosity.

Phadian cursed under his breath as he pulled his morningstar from his belt and flanked the creature to the right. He managed to get a biting hit into the rat's side before it turned on him and knocked him to the ground.

"Get up!" Matalian bellowed as he stabbed deep into the monster's chest.

Whether it was the yell or the injury, they had no way of knowing, but she suddenly turned around and scurried beneath the rubble. They heard her bulk shift the stones as she disappeared down into the dark, followed by the two smaller ones, and then...squeaking...

"No..." Korra trailed off as she stepped onto the edge of the nest.

Nestled in the cloth and hay and bones were a number of squirming, pink, blind babies...

Matalian stepped into the nest and raise his mace, even as Phadian's hand came down on his wrist, "They're innocent! Let them be!"

"We don't need to give her a reason to come back." Matalian growled as he shook off the cleric, "Besides, we could use the meat."

She felt a sudden flash of hate as his mace fell against one of the pinkies in the nest, cracking its spine audibly and ripping into its tender abdomen. They were so much like her...helpless, sitting and waiting for the painful end, groping blindly in the dark for _any _warmth and safety...any salvation...and before she could stop herself she had stepped in front of him, her hand on her dagger.

"Leave them."

"Are you really going to be his dog?" Matalian growled as he gestured towards Phadian.

"You're already his bitch." Ruby replied coldly.

Korra flinched visibly. Ruby had just tested the dominance of a man who was effectively a carnivorous ape. Matalian's instincts would rebel against a female, and a small one at that, stepping up to the plate to challenge him. For a brutally long moment, she was sure he would raise the mace in his hands and bring it down on Ruby's skull; much to her surprise and relief, he simply turned away with a growl.

She watched Ruby and Phadian share a glance and felt like something had passed between them, but when her friend turned back to her, the Ranger saw nothing but icy steel in her eyes.

The half-elf rogue very deliberately waited for Matalian to leave the room before she did, closing the door behind her.

Nothing further was said as they advanced down the hall. It terminated in another door, made of stone and locked.

Ruby tinkered at it for about two minutes before unlocking it. Raising her crossbow, she gently pushed the door in. The room was large and ended at the far side in a crenelated wall. She crept forward, low to the ground and silent, and sighted something.

The goblin's head popped up as it pulled back on a bowstring and let an arrow fly. Ruby side stepped the sloppy shot, but tripped a wire on the ground. Three more arrows flew from the wall to her right, one catching her in the shoulder and the other piercing Mog under his arm.

She fired back, nailing the goblin in the forehead as it stood up to take another shot. Its arrow fell limp against the ground as the body fell back. She took a step around the door to reload, missing the fact that, in hiding, there was a second goblin. She heard Mog and Korra curse and Phadian reach for something, but didn't realize what had happened. Before she could get back around the door, it had already disappeared.

"Damn..." Korra sighed.

"Let's hurry up." Mog said. Goblins were never far from the horde...

He walked over to the wall, pulled himself over it, and found himself on a landing. The body of the slain goblin was sprawled near the remains of a fire, long since cold and dead. As it tapered away, he realized that, five feet down on the opposite side, was another set of doors.

Next to him, Korra came down on the landing and, without ceremony, began looting the body. She took a number of things-coins, weapons, and even patches of leather from the armor-stowed them in her bag, and began looking over the other doors.

"I say we go for this one." She pointed to one on the other side of the wall that branched west.

With the consent of the group, Ruby began working at the lock. It was crudely made, and had suffered from its time in the cold dark and was easily picked. She pushed it open gently with her fingertips and began sneaking forward with her crossbow held high.

The door opened into a corridor that turned left. The floor was dusty, but mostly undisturbed. Quietly, she walked around the corner and realized too late what was going to happen.

The javelin struck the floor between her and Korra and erupted in a blazing white light. Both Korra and Ruby dropped low to the ground, hoping to make themselves smaller targets. Mog, blinded, shouldered himself against the wall and raised his shield. Matalian, his vision blinking in red and blue strobes, backed around the corner.

Phadian alone managed to turn his head in time, and, looking up, realized the crenelated wall that also ran through this room was dotted with a number of goblins. He drew his bow and sighted the first one, only to have his arrow go wild when he was forced to sidestep another javelin.

He skirted a bolt from a crossbow and tried again when he saw a spear pierce Ruby solidly between the shoulder blades. He heard the concussive force ripple through her as it expanded outward, and saw a trickle of blood escape the corner of her lips.

"How many?" Korra called from the ground.

"I can't tell." Phadian responded as he let loose an arrow. The howl that came back as it struck a goblin in the chest was all the encouragement he needed.

Taking meager cover against the wall where it turned into the straight hallway, he lined up another shot. A moment later, as he was reloading, he saw a bolt pierce Ruby's right shoulder.

She cursed under her breath and forced herself up on her hands. Staying tight against the wall, she began crawling backwards, trying to get around the corner until her vision cleared. She heard something clatter hard against the stone above her head just as she began turning...and a hand on her shoulder.

For a moment that dragged on into a small eternity, she wondered if she would be yanked back into the darkness...left alone to die horribly in that dungeon...The panic was just beginning to flutter low in her stomach when she felt the two weapons being pulled out and the wounds closing in on themselves.

"Phadian?"

"It's me." He told her, bending over and around her to take another shot, "Stay there."

He took a step forward, took out another goblin, and came to rest over Korra. Beside him, Mog dropped his shield and realized that he could make out the fuzzy lines of the wall and the bobbing dots of the goblins' heads. He blinked, rubbed at his eyes, and the scene cleared a bit more.

Taking his chance, he charged in, shield held high, and began stabbing wildly at the goblins. They reached down, tried to pin him, and most reeled back with a shriek as they lost limbs. Some were disemboweled outright.

It took perhaps another few seconds for Matalian's vision to return, but when he did he wasted no time. He ran into the melee, pulling himself over the wall, and began to hack at everything in front of him.

With the distraction to help him, Mog managed to get over the wall and flank them from the other side. Pressed between the two, the goblins started trying to escape either up a rope that threaded through a hole in the ceiling, or down over the other side of the crenelation.

At least one fell when Korra, her vision still blurry, took a lucky shot. It pierced a goblin with enough force to send it over the other side of the wall. Ruby, however, had less luck. Her vision, still dancing with lights and swimming in murk, saw something come up behind Matalian as she peeked around the corner.

She lined up her shot and took it. The bolt managed to bounce against the crenelated wall, sending it flying up against the ceiling where it shattered. Cursing under her breath, she took another. This one struck Matalian as he moved to defend himself, embedding its shaft deep in the armor over his shoulder.

Phadian eyed the man carefully as he dispatched a final goblin, though he didn't seem injured by the misplaced shot. Likely, he thought to himself as Matalian pulled it from his armor, he hadn't even pierced the leather beneath the plates.

"We can't stay here!" Mog told them as he counted the number that had gotten away. He totaled five, perhaps six.

He selected a door that led south away from the crenelated wall and opened it. Already tearing through the darkness were more. In front were two goblins, each manipulating a warg, and behind them were two hobgoblins. He couldn't see past to determine if there were more before one of the wargs charged.

It knocked him back, throwing him over the crenelation. He landed hard beside Korra, who dropped her staff and reached for her bow.

Ruby, seeing a second warg barrel through the door, tried to slip into the shadows next to her. The creature, already locked onto her movement, growled as it leapt from the wall and raced after her.

Matalian tried to strike at the one beside him, and missed. The creature reeled around in defense and bit down hard against his good arm, shaking him viciously. He howled something unintelligible as he tried to extricate himself from its jaws.

Ruby, pinned against the wall, took a shot at the hulking beast in front of her. It struck it low in the chest, but the kick knocked the weapon from her hand. The hyena-like creature growled, bared its teeth, and lunged.

The red-haired rogue heard someone yell, but it wasn't until the creature was knocked back that she realized who it was: Phadian, standing almost twenty feet to her left, managed a shot that buried itself deep in the ribcage of the warg.

"Matalian, move!" Korra yelled as she tried to line up a shot over the wall. He was surrounded by two goblins and being pressed by one of the hobgoblins into the warg.

Instead, he lifted his mace and shouted, "Brothers, I come home!", as he charged.

"Idiot!" Korra shouted, oblivious to the fact that the warg behind her was rising.

Ruby yanked her dagger from her belt and stabbed down at the creature, desperate to give Korra precious seconds to reach her staff. She missed, slipping against the wet stone and falling down against her left arm.

From the shadows to her right, Ruby saw Meepo take a step forward and slap the warg against the snout. The creature hissed, stumbled, and fell. In almost the same breath, Korra took a shot that struck a hobgoblin full in the throat. It croaked at it fell forward, its hands groping desperately at the shaft.

Mog, coming around the ranger, quickly dispatched the warg beginning to rise with a brutal hack across its spine. Spattered in gore, he turned his attention back to the wall as Matalian was stabbed three times in the back.

His impetus carried him over the wall, and he landed heavily against the stone.

"Go!" Korra shouted as Phadian as she took another shot. It sailed past the goblin, forcing it back a pace but failing to strike.

"Don't let them get away!" Mog shouted as he scrambled over the wall and split one almost in half.

Phadian ran forward, dropping the bow as he did, and grabbed Matalian under the shoulders. He hauled him back into the corridor and began applying pressure to the gaping wounds in his back and his arms.

He looked up in time to see Mog kill the last goblin and begin spiking the doors closed.

* * *

Matalian made breakfast. It consisted of weak broth with unknown meat and little taste, but it was hot. They discussed their options while they sipped at it. Ultimately, they decided to move back down into the hallway and try the door at the end.

It was carved with a dragon, more intricate and larger than the others, with an unlocked door that wasn't rigged. Already confused, Ruby opened the door and slipped inside. As far as she could tell, the room hadn't been used in a while.

Stretching out in front of them were two columns of marble that were comprised of six pillars, each carved like a different dragon. Moving backwards, the dragons became greater in nature. One side was clearly for metallics, the other for chromatics. In the middle of the set up was a silver statue that Meepo declared was "A Calcrix...but not Meepo's Calcrix."

Mog relayed the information to the rogue as she began reading the carvings on each. She started reading the names absently to herself when Mog's hand suddenly came down on her shoulder. His eyes flickered up to the statue whose name she had just read, and she realized for the first time that they were moving...turning to face her when she spoke.

With his help, she determined that, moving away from her in the left column, were the dragons Ashwer, Gildreth, one that Meepo called "Socralth", Batara, Gâdamit, and one that Mog told her not to speak.

"Why?" Ruby asked, keeping her eyes on the statues.

"Because that one is a goddess." Mog didn't tell her that it was an evil goddess.

Ruby shrugged as she went down the line of the right. The one in front of her was unnamed, and the one moving away from her was Corundum. There was another gap in the names and then it went to Corinthian, Celestra, and another dragon name that Mog warned her against speaking.

"I wonder..." Phadian began, "If the black one is Socalath."

The word Meepo used was close enough, but there was no way to tell with the differences in language between Common and Underdark.

"I'm not sure there is anything else here." Ruby told them after trying several Draconic words. "I think these were religious instruments, not puzzles or traps."

"It would make sense." Phadian told her.

"There's another door over here." Korra told them as she stepped through the rows of marble to the back of the room.

Ruby followed after her, coming to kneel in front of another stone door. It was locked, of course. She worked at it for a moment, checked the device, and decided it was safe. She moved her hand into the stonework and felt a sharp prick against her ring finger.

She sighed under her breath as she pulled her hand back and opened the door. She was just stepping through the door when she started to feel sick. Her joints began to seize up on her and her muscles started to ache. She said nothing as she moved across the room to another door.

It was carved with another dragon that, based on Meepo's sudden excitement, resembled Calcrix. As she approached it, it hissed at her: "Stars bright, ribbon in the sky."

She repeated it back to the group as she tried the Draconic for 'Milky Way.' Nothing happened.

"What about the Aurora Borealis?" Korra asked.

"I'll try." Ruby told her before repeating back the words.

The door creaked, opened, and swung into a strange room. It was decorated with a number of mounted heads, many poorly preserved, and carvings of kobold faces on the floor. There were a number of damaged tables around a spike in the center of the room that ended in a snapped chain. The walls were covered in a veneer of blue ice that dropped the temperature in the hallway sharply.

Matalian suddenly looked up and pointed, "What the hell is that?"

No sooner had he said something than a ridge of ice began to shift and unfurl. A tail swung up and away from a long, slender head to reveal sharp teeth and glistening eyes. It roared, opening its mouth and striking out with a cone of bitter cold.

Ruby rolled to her left as Phadian yanked Korra out of the way. Mog, too slow on his feet, was struck by it. His armor iced over, the metal burning cold into his chest, as he stumbled back.

Ruby lifted her crossbow and took a shot at it. It was poorly aimed, and ricocheted off the cold stone into the ground. She lined up another shot just as Phadian was shoved into her from the side as Matalian yelled, "Get in there!"

The cleric toppled the smaller rogue and her second bolt went wild. He scrambled up off of her quickly as Matalian moved in to strike at it with his mace. As Ruby pushed herself up on her arms to take another shot, she felt a reptilian hand close over her shoulder and a number of old wounds tear open.

Mog, trying to recover, heard the kobold shout, "Stop! No hurt Meepo's Calcrix!"

The shout drew the attention of the dragon, who fluttered to the floor. Against the ground, they could see that it was about four feet tall and ten feet long. Here, they could immediately see it was a young one, giving them hope they might survive the encounter. Until it turned on the kobold just as Matalian charged it, blasting both of them back with an icy breath.

Ruby, seeing her chance, pulled her dagger from her belt and buried it deep in the back of the kobold. Kicking his body away, she tried to rise. The dragon turned its eyes on her, but was stopped by a crushing blow under its chin from Matalian's mace.

It reeled back, striking out hard at Korra as she tried to flank it. Both of its claws hit home, and it ripped into her shoulder with a vicious bite that tore away flesh in a bloody chunk. The ranger dropped to the ground, reached for her staff, and went limp.

"Korra!" Ruby turned her narrowed eyes on the dragon and lifted her dagger to stab.

In the same motion, Matalian slipped against the icy floor and crashed into her. His mace struck her hard against the shoulder blade, cracking bone audibly. She fell forward, gasped, and lost consciousness.

Mog pulled himself up, drew the attention of the creature, and was slammed into the far wall by a swipe of its claws.

It must have been the whisper of cold air against her cheek, but Ruby fought herself to consciousness. She tried to move, found the burning agony in her shoulder stopped her, and reached for something in her back. She never made it as darkness claimed her again.

Matalian hooted viciously as he rose, took a swing at it, and ripped deep into the creature's wing. As he did so, Phadian worked his way around the melee and dragged Ruby away from the battle. He pressed a chunk of cloth against her shoulder, positioned her close to the wall, and looked up. He was just starting to move again when the creature noticed him and retaliated with a bite.

He tore himself away from the jaws, leaving a jagged line in his bicep, and sprinted back around it to the other side. Matalian moved to the left to distract it and give him precious moments to pull Mog out of the chaos. As he was stabilizing the hypothermic dwarf, he saw Matalian spear the dragon under the chin and crack its skull with his javelin.

It twitched once, confused, before it stopped moving...forever.

"Spike the door!" Phadian told him as he began working on Korra.

Matalian said nothing as he did the job and then set to work cutting away a number of claws from the dragon. He laid one down on Korra's chest, Ruby's chest, and Mog's chest before giving one to Phadian and putting his own claw in his back. Then, he began to skin the dragon and section off chunks of meat.

When Phadian finally fell asleep, he was still working away at the corpse.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

_**Chapter Ten: The Outer Core **_

_**Disclaimer: I do NOT own D and D, but the characters within and some plot elements are intellectual property. **_

In the morning, Phadian healed them as best he could. Korra and Mog, at least, were on their feet. Ruby, however, could barely pace the room without winding herself.

"What should we do?" Korra finally asked.

"I think we should leave." Matalian responded as he began sifting out a few shreds of skin from something he was boiling.

"We still haven't found what we came here to find." Phadian replied.

"If you wish to continue, I'll follow." Matalian told him simply as he began ladling out bowls of soup.

"I am sorry about the whole dragon thing..." Korra told him as she accepted a wooden bowl, "I thought you might find what you were looking for there..."

"I _had _my honorable death." Matalian glared at Phadian, "And you took it away from me."

"Your problem is with Ehlonna and Thor, then." Ruby snapped at him as she sat down against the far wall, "As for turning around, that's not an option for me."

"Either way, we need to stay here for at least another night." Matalian replied, "You still don't look good."

The rogue glared back at him with all the fury she could muster; however right he was, she hardly wanted the rest of the group to know how badly she felt.

Phadian finally broke the tension, "He's right."

Matalian grunted as he shoved a slab of meat at the cleric and asked him to preserve it. Sighing under his breath, Phadian responded he hadn't prepared that particular spell...

"No worries." Korra smirked as she picked up a chunk of icy rock, "We've got our own built in freezer!"

Matalian grunted his approval as he began packing the innards with stone and ice chunks and bundled it off in the corner.

Ruby finished her breakfast and settled back into her pallet. She would take third watch, as usual, and until then, she intended to sleep off the worst of the poisons in her system.

* * *

Mog had ultimately requested they stagger the watch throughout the night. It had been Phadian and Matalian for the first round, and then Matalian and himself. He was still awake and Korra was just beginning to rise when he heard something outside of the door.

He listened as the footsteps came to a halt and watched as the doorknob was twisted and turned several times. The spike, however, held and after a few minutes whatever it was had moved on...but it, or they, kept coming back...

Periodically, sometimes a few minutes early or a few minutes later, the knob would again begin to turn and the door to shake with failed attempts to open it. Whoever or whatever was on the other side, never said anything, and never forced it...

In the morning, over a bowl of thick stew that was flavored with a number of dried herbs, he discussed the situation with them.

"Do you think this door was supposed to be unlocked?" Phadian asked.

"Likely. I doubt the dragon was feeding itself." Mog responded.

"Then we probably shouldn't stay here much longer." Korra said.

Within the hour, they had packed their gear and checked their supplies. It was Mog who suggested going through the other door in the room rather than risk the hallway. It seemed to open south, away from the corridor, and hopefully away from the heart of the goblin territory.

They agreed to it, removed the spike in front of it, and opened it. It swung in and out to a wide hallway that turned some thirty feet down towards the west.

Ruby elected to go first and wasn't even a pace in when the floor beneath her collapsed into an open pit. Mog managed to grab her from behind and yank her away from it, remarking dryly, "These half-elves love pits..."

"Thanks..." Ruby told him shakily as she looked down into the pit. A number of spikes gleamed back up at her.

She looked up and realized that there was a narrow ledge on each side where the floor met with the wall instead of opening up. Enough, she realized, to get across. Attaching a rope to her waist, she inched her way across the ledge and secured the lead on the other side.

Phadian, Korra, and Matalian all managed in the same way. Mog, however, recognizing his balance was poor at best, elected to jump. It wound up being a poor decision as he missed the edge by at least a foot and fell down some fifteen odd feet into the dark. He landed badly, impaled himself through the leg, and decided that while he waited for Korra and Phadian to help pull him up, he would search.

As it turned out, it was a pit...

The incident was forgotten almost as soon as they came to another door. Ruby picked the lock easily and halted the group with a flick of her wrist.

It was a filthy room, littered with body parts, odd carrion, scraps of cloth, damaged armor plates, and disgusting skins. And, in the middle of the room, were six hammocks made of rotting bearskin...each emitting a soft snore.

She crept in, her dagger at her belt, and moved to the first hammock. The goblin was dispatched instantly with a flick of her blade over its throat. The second and third met similar ends. As she approached the fourth, it yawned, opened its bleary eyes, and started to say something.

Ruby's hand snapped over its mouth in the same moment her dagger buried itself in the creature's skull. The dull thud woke the fifth up, who sat up without bothering to turn around. It never even saw Ruby; she swung in hard from behind, slid the blade between the junction of its head and neck, and eased the body back down.

Mog, seeing the sixth hammock begin to stir, charged it. The blow of the ax against its back sent a spray of black mist into the air and then...nothing.

The rest of the group quietly filtered in when she gave the signal, and began looting the bodies. Ultimately, they turned up with very little: one ring with a sapphire stone, a scroll of parchment, and twenty nine pieces of copper that were found with a false leg in a separate hammock.

While Phadian pored over the scroll, Mog decided to take a closer look at the one he had found some days ago. He wasn't sure what compelled him to read it, but he was grateful in the end. It told the story of a dwarven king who had, in a battle whose name was long lost, used a set of glass whistles to summon the undead. He wielded them to fight back an attacking goblin army, and the rest of the story was lost to time and wear. Mog quickly demanded them from the group, and began collecting them in a leather pouch.

"What's wrong?" Korra asked as she turned over a number of them.

"They summon undead." Mog told her as he tied off the pouch and slipped it back into his bag.

"Is that what the scroll said?" Phadian asked.

"Yes, and it didn't give much detail on how to use them, or who could." The dwarf replied, adding, "This room ends in a dead end, we should turn back before we get caught here by the next patrol."

They backtracked, tried another door, found themselves back in the room of dragon statues. Turned back down a different hall, tried a different door, and found themselves in a familiar hall. They must have wandered for hours before finally coming to another carved door they hadn't seen before. It opened easily, leading into another hallway that terminated in a door. That led into a room with another door at the end.

But the walls on this one curved outward, suggesting the room behind it was circular...and large. They were debating turning around and trying another when something flickered in the shadows. Ruby and Mog saw it before the others, but not before the shadowy hand darted from the dark and grabbed Mog.

He jerked back from the icy burn of its touch just as Matalian dropped his torch to avoid another. He pulled his mace, giving Korra and Ruby time to move away from the edge of the darkness. It also gave Phadian precious seconds to cast.

His turn spell, blessed by Ehlonna, sent a searing wave of good energy through the room; both of the shadowy creatures turned, gazed at them with eyeless heads, and suddenly darted into the dark without a sound.

Ruby, wasting no time, moved to the door on her left and pressed her ear to it. On the other side she could hear a lot of talking and grumbling...something happened the erupted in a scuffle, and then silence and more grumbling...

She shook her head, whispering, "Too many."

Phadian nodded at her and took a stand in front of the other door as she moved to the next door. She was kneeling to pick the lock when something shifted to her left. A spear erupted from the wall to her left, piercing her deep in the flesh between her hip and the edge of her ribcage as it sailed past her.

It landed with an audible thunk against the stone and they froze...for an eternity, it seemed the door behind her would open and the hallway would flood with goblins. But when the moments ticked by and the quiet settled again, they realize they hadn't heard them at all.

"Ruby..." Phadian whispered, motioning to the bleeding wound. She shook her head.

Unwilling to test her luck further, the red-haired rogue finished picking the lock and opened the door.

"Oh...shit..." Korra trailed off as she stumbled back a step.

In the center of the massive room was a hulking creature rising from a battered throne. He looked like a goblin, plated in mail and wearing an odd mask, his rat-like tail trailing out behind him. At his feet was a giant iron chest...and four goblins flanked by four hobgoblins, and two rats...one of which, Matalian realized, he had fought before...

Around the room were a number of iron pots sprouting tiny bushes, arranged around a pit in the room that glowed violet. Writhing around it, and against the far wall behind the throne, were sickly white vines and pale green leaves.

The goblin king bellowed something and two of the pots began to rattle as two creatures stood up...bushes about Ruby's height...things, she realized, that might have once been people from one of the neighboring villages...

"Back..." Ruby's voice, like her chest and knees, shook.

Frozen, it wasn't until she shouted, "Move!" that Korra and Phadian started to walk backwards.

"Archers, get back." Mog said as he slipped through the door, lining himself up with Matalian. From the doorway, they could bottleneck the enemies while the archers worked over the hobgoblins and the king in the back.

Korra, Ruby, and Phadian pulled back down the hallway and started lining up their shots. The cleric was just sighting his when a javelin shattered against the doorway near Mog.

Ruby took her shot. The bolt flew over the goblin forcing his way into the doorway and struck the king behind it. A sound like wood being struck echoed back to her, and she felt a shiver creep up her spine.

Beside her, Phadian scrambled to the right as a javelin buried itself in the ground near him. He spun back a moment later, yelling an encouraging word as one of the sapling creatures fell against Mog's ax.

As the dwarf swung down again on the creature, a javelin sailed over his head. Ruby saw it coming and dropped to her knees. It flew over her and struck the wall farther down the hall. The sound echoed in almost the same moment as the singing of a bow.

The king had fired back, narrowly missing Mog. As the dwarf scrambled back up, though, a goblin charged it and struck him hard across the back with a spear. His armor stopped the worst of it, put he felt it pierce flesh. Behind it, the two rats were fighting to get into the narrow chokehold.

Matalian darted out to strike one across the head and pulled back in time to avoid another javelin. He tried to step forward, yelling back at Phadian, "Fire potion!" but missed both of his strikes against the rats.

One of the saplings clawed its way through, followed closely by three goblins. It was an ill-timed assault: one of them was pierced through the chest by a hobgoblin behind it, and fell shrieking to the floor.

Korra shifted her weight. In the same hand she held the string of her bow, she clutched another. She had a chance, however small, she reasoned, of hitting with both. The first one flew over the head of one hobgoblin and sunk into the chest of the king. But based on the sound, she knew it had failed to pierce the armor. She quickly reset herself, pulled back hard, and smiled as it slid into the creature's throat.

Ruby smiled back as she took her shot; it landed solidly and pierced the goblin king's armor. She was starting to line up another when Matalian bellowed in pain. He staggered back, pierced by a javelin that suddenly erupted into flame.

Phadian, startled by the strike, dropped his arrow as he shouted Matalian's name. The hobgoblin in the back, seeing him turn his focus, threw another javelin. It struck Phadian in the thigh and flared into a concussive shockwave.

Two of the goblins started shooting in the melee as Mog reached over to strike the queen rat as she snarled up from the chaos. As he hacked at it, a javelin sailed low under the attack and towards Korra.

She flung herself to the left, catching herself on the wall and pushing herself back into position. She lined up another shot, and a fraction of a second before she could take it, Matalian stumbled into her line of fire. He swung, missed, and swung again.

"He's blind!" Korra shouted back at Mog, swiveling on her foot and shooting over the man's shoulder.

Both shots missed when she was forced to adjust at the last possible moment to avoid hitting Matalian. Mog, unable to reach him past the rat, ducked under it and slit her belly open. He came up through the gore in time to catch Matalian as he stumbled back, an arrow embedded in his chest.

Mog tried to move him, and was forced back by the thrust of a spear. He threw Matalian away from it as he danced back and shouted back at the group.

Phadian saw it happening first: Matalian started to crawl back, trying to get away from the doorway. Realizing he still had a chance, he lowered his bow and moved to go help him. The sudden motion drew attention, though, and he was forced back five paces by another javelin.

The second rat tried to bite down on Mog, and missed narrowly when a goblin elbowed its way into the chaos. Another javelin came raining down on them. Its arc was too high, and instead of impaling Ruby it pierced the floor in front of her.

"Move!" She pushed Korra aside as it erupted in a shockwave that threw Phadian to his knees.

He tried to scramble up, but met a javelin in mid-flight with the flesh of his thigh. He ripped it out, threw it down beside him, and took off running as Matalian pushed himself against the wall.

Korra stumbled, recovered, and took another two shots. One flew too far to the right and struck the throne, but the second hit the creature in the abdomen.

Ruby watched as one of the hobgoblins turned on Korra and raised its javelin. She swung her crossbow around, took a shot, and missed. The bolt, however, forced the creature to abandon Korra as its target. The hobgoblin glared back at her, narrowed its eyes, and smirked.

In the front row, Mog struck at the second rat as Phadian started to drag Matalian away. One of the goblins hissed at him and tried to take a shot. Its line of sight, however, was interrupted when Mog threw the rat to the side and the arrow flew to the left of the cleric.

The javelin that came after it, however, didn't. It sailed from the far corner of the room and hit Korra in the lower leg, piercing her calf. And then it erupted in a wave of sound. She dropped to the floor just as Mog danced left of the rat's bite.

Ruby managed to avoid the shockwave and line up another shot. Phadian, having already chanted his prayer and healed Matalian as best he could, sprinted back to the archer line.

It was a mistake that was almost fatal: He came to a skidding stop as a javelin sailed past him on the left. From her peripherals, Ruby was sure she had seen him impaled and gasped as she turned to help him. In that moment, the javelin erupted in a blinding flash of light. Korra managed to turn away from it, and it sailed behind Phadian a fraction of a second before it blazed into light. Ruby, however, didn't.

Her vision flashed with color before blackening. She dropped to the ground, trying to make herself a smaller target, when she heard Korra tell her, "Stay there! Play dead and take your shot when you have it!"

The ranger deliberately moved away from the prone body, motioning at Phadian to the same as she sighted another target.

In front of her, Matalian chugged a small vial of potion. He waited for her arrow to cut through the melee before he charged into it. She threw herself down as another javelin narrowly missed the tender flesh of her throat and came back up shooting.

Behind her, Phadian took a moment to heal himself before he drew back on his composite bow. He tried to take a shot and had to abort it when Mog, stepping to avoid Matalian's wild swing, interrupted his path. Mog, pinned between the rat and Matalian, was clipped across the shoulder but managed to avoid the swipe of the evil sapling.

Two javelins, thrown simultaneously, sailed around him and clattered far down into the darkness of the hallway. Another, clearly having grazed something on its flight path, went wild and missed Phadian by several feet.

Matalian suddenly stepped between the door and the enemies and belched fire; the red and orange flames burst through the doorway in a backlash as the screams of the enemies came echoing down the corridor.

As the heat died back to reveal cinder, one of the hobgoblins, having sought shelter beneath a fallen comrade, bolted for the door. As it stood up, Ruby's vision began to return and she took a shot at it through the doorway.

The bolt missed, as did Korra's arrow. Mog sprinted in after it, missed it with the swing of his ax, and was carried to the ground by the impetus of the weapon. Matalian, faster on his feet, managed to spike it through the back just as it reached and opened the door.

His eyes widened and he suddenly screamed, "Oh, shit!" as he slammed the door and braced against with his back. Phadian, running into the room, managed to put down the last goblin as it tried to flee and turned to watch something begin to pound against the door.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapter Eleven: The Room **_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own D and D and, as always, the characters within are intellectual property. **_

Ruby and Korra darted into the room, slamming the door behind themselves so Mogue could spike it. On the other side of the room, Mata'Alian was spiking the other door. They checked the reinforcements, realized they couldn't do anything else, and started to look around.

Mogue wandered first over to the pit, and realized the odd glow coming from it was the result of a number of Underdark mushrooms growing about fifty-five feet down into the dark. But even with their light, he couldn't see the bottom of the it...And they were huge. Easily fifteen feet in diameter, he had never seen them grow that large, even when they were sprouting _in _mounds of bodies...

Behind him, Phadian turned to Mata'Alian and asked, "What did you see?"

"A lot of 'em."

"A lot?"

Mata'Alian nodded.

"A lot of what?" The cleric asked.

"Goblins."

"Well..shit." Korra sighed. They were trapped, then...pinned between an open hallway and a goblin horde...

"We still have two breath of fire potions." Ruby pointed out, "If we need to, we can draw them into the hall and have Mata'Alian flank them from behind. Between him and Phadian, it's just a matter of pressing them between two walls of flame."

"Assuming they aren't already out there..." The Ranger responded.

"Are we willing to risk it?" Ruby asked as she eyed the door.

"Look, you open it and I'll stand behind it. If we need to fortify again in a hurry, there's two of us." Korra replied.

The rogue walked over, crouched low to the ground, and lifted the spike. She opened the door a fraction of an inch, peered down the hallway, drew back, and spiked it.

"It looks empty, but I can't see around the corner." She told Korra.

"I don't think we should push our luck by going down there." The Ranger replied.

"Agreed..."

"Goblins are cowardly," Mogue told them as he pulled himself away from the pit, "It would not be unlike them to run if they had any indication they're king was dead."

"I'm not willing to bet my life on it." Ruby told him frankly.

Korra's green eyes flickered up as something moved in the meager shadows behind them. For a moment, everything was still...and then a hand coalesced from the darkness.

"Watch out!" She shouted, shooting over Ruby's shoulder in the same breath.

The rogue rolled to the side in time to see clawed, shadowy hand clamp down on Mata'Alian's shoulder. The man responded in an instant, sweeping his mace up and his rapier down. The mace passed through it like dark miss, but the rapier stuck solidly.

"Hold still!" Korra yelled as she dropped to her knee, sighted her arrow _at _Ruby, and fired dangerously close to her throat. The arrow sliced past Ruby's ear and pierced something behind her. A blast of cold air raced up her spine in time with a chilling wail that seemed to evaporate into midair.

The rogue spun on her heel, buried her dagger into something that gave way around the blade like water, and drew back. The creature turned on Mata'Alian, pulling him almost to his knees before Mogue could get behind it and finish the job.

"You okay there, big boy?" Korra asked as she placed a hand on Mata'Alian's shoulder.

He was _freezing_. His skin was starting to pale and the edges of his lips blue.

Phadian eyed him critically. Without more spells, which would take another night, there was nothing he could do. The injuries weren't purely physical; those creatures had drained off some of the man's strength, probably in the form of body heat.

"We'll have to stay here." He finally told them, "We can't risking moving with an injured party."

"Great..." Korra sighed.

"We might as well look around, then." Ruby said.

"Shit! You're right!" Korra laughed as she eyed the iron chest.

Ruby smiled back at her as she walked over to the body of the king and started raiding it. On his belt, he had an iron key of crude make that she reasoned was probably for the chest. But _under _his belt, she found a ring. It was a silver ring, set with a moonstone. She pocketed it, turned to Mogue, and gave him the key.

Phadian turned on her suddenly, demanding, "What else did you find?"

Ruby turned back to him, met his gaze, and responded, "I found a key, cleric. Which I've already turned over."

He didn't like it, but he had no proof and no desire to argue any further. He turned away from her, walked over to Mogue, and started helping him inventory the items in the chest. There was quite a bit of gold, two small gems, some potion bottles, and a scroll. That with the items stripped from the other corpses, such as some platinum and odd gold pieces, would more than cover their expenses once they reached a town.

But it wasn't until Mogue walked up to the iron throne and lifted the right armrest that he realized there was anything else. Hidden in a compartment in the throne was a wand made of dark wood. It was too fine to be goblin work, and he wondered how they had come across it...

He was interrupted when Korra knelt low to the ground, palmed some soil, brought it to her to her nose and said, "Something isn't right here..."

It was flecked with orange...like the eyes of those villagers caught in limbo...and smelled like...blood...like...the fleshy, ripeness of a woman in labor...

She dropped the fistful of dirt, rubbed her hands together, and said, "It smells almost like decay, but its too fresh."

"Could those mushrooms have something to do with it?" Ruby asked as she looked down at the glowing domes.

"It might. I have no idea. I've honestly never seen mushrooms like that." The Ranger told her.

"They're a species of Underdark, but they don't generally get that large." Mogue told them.

"Then what's feeding them?" Ruby asked out loud.

"Maybe the same thing that's making these?" Mogue asked as he showed her two large bulbs.

They looked like giant garlic cloves, wrapped in thick, woody bark. They were also heavy...too heavy for their size...

She pulled her dagger, sat down against the floor, and started sawing away at it. It wasn't until she cut through the first almost papery layer that she realized how thick the membrane underneath was; it was an odd combination of thickness and elasticity and she knew she was going to be there for a while.

"Phadian," Mata'Alian called him over from the corner without warning, "Would you help me?"

"Sure." The cleric told him, "What's going on?"

"I feel terrible. I really think I need to eat. Could you help me get dinner going?"

"Of course!"

He was already deep into it when he realized that Mata'Alian couldn't slice the meat, or the odd tubers he offered, on his own. Mostly, he sat back and gave Phadian suggestions on how to do it, or what spices to add, and dozed uneasily between ingredients. Eventually, Phadian stopped telling him what he was doing or adding and just let him sleep.

He was finishing up and setting it on the fire to boil when Ruby finally broke through the odd bulb. It took a good deal of effort to pull it apart, and the stringy tendrils holding it together snapped audibly when they did give. Blood, mixed with a weird sticky fluid that she recognized immediately—it had been floating around the cocooned body of Hank—dribbled over her hands. And inside was a fetus...

"Korra, can you come over here?" She asked.

"Sure. What's up?" The Ranger asked as she crouched beside the rogue.

"Can you tell me what this was?" Ruby asked, holding up one half of the pod.

Korra fought her gag reflex back. However much she despised the creature that it would have one day become, she couldn't help but feel nauseous at the sight of the fetus inside of the bulb. It was goblinoid, clearly dead...and attached to the inside membrane of the pod with a sick caricature of an umbilical cord.

"I'm pretty sure it was a goblin." She told the rogue, eyeing it from a different angle.

"What was a goblin?" Phadian asked, rising from the fire.

"This...fetus." Korra told him, taking the pod from Ruby and holding it up.

Something inside the cleric boiled up with indignant rage. It was a _baby..._whose life had been cut short by the evil festering in the darkness...

The rogue rose, wiping her hands on a spare rag, and walked over to the edge of the pit. And then she decided.

"Cleric, give me a hand." She said as she pulled a kit from her bag.

"You're going down there?" Phadian asked as she clipped the harness over her hips, "Why?"

"I would tell you if I could." She replied enigmatically as she tied off one end of her silk rope to the throne and started knotting the rope at regular intervals, "If I pull three times, haul me up."

"Don't touch the caps." Mogue warned her, "Some species give off poisonous spores."

Phadian said nothing more as she lowered the rope, and eased herself over the lip of the pit. The walls was surprisingly well-maintained with brick. It had been spaced, perhaps deliberately, and odd white roots and pale vines sprang from the crevices. They were thick and woody, strong enough to bear her weight without the assistance of the rope...and bloomed black leaves.

They were not shriveled or rotting, quite the contrary...they looked healthy. They were shiny with natural wax, plump with fluid, and sprouted in abundance. When she broke one off, it bled a milky pink substance that smelled like...dandelions...

She glanced down, realized that even with the light of the mushrooms she couldn't see the bottom of the pit, and started working her way back up. She pulled herself over the edge and said simply, "We're going to need more rope."

Mogue helped her haul the rope back up and attached his own to it. With the knotting shortening it, they still had over a hundred and twenty feet. Ruby, however, insisted on another. Phadian offered his and they took it, secured it, and looped it with handholds.

"What did you find?" Korra asked her as Ruby tested the strength of a knot.

"What I didn't find was the bottom." The rogue responded, "And plenty of unnatural foliage."

"I'm going down with you this time." The ranger told her.

"Do you have a harness?"

"No."

"We can make one." Ruby told her. She took some spare silk rope, measured it around Korra's waist, tied it off around her thighs, and knotted a small loop near the ranger's left hand.

"This will hold better," Mogue told them as he tinkered at it, "With an infinity knot."

"You said it was unnatural?" Phadian asked her as he ladled out some stew, "In what way?"

"The leaves down there are black, but healthy. And I think they're feeding on blood. If you break them open, they seep a pink milk."

"What about the roots?" He asked.

"I didn't check." Ruby told him.

Phadian walked over, a bowl of stew still balanced in his left hand, and knelt beside one of the roots that wriggled up from the dark. He tried cutting it, broke into something like wood, and got back an odd smell...dandelion...Not exactly, but quite close...

"Ready?" Ruby asked Korra as she fixed the harness to the rope.

The ranger nodded and Ruby eased herself back down. She went first, calling back good handholds to the ranger, and they disappeared into the dark. They took the descent carefully, checking the vines and roots they used before bearing their full weight on them, checking the wall for loose stones, and pausing frequently to listen.

About half an hour later, they found themselves dangling just above the mushrooms. They were even larger than they had originally thought, some as wide as thirty feet in diameter, and were comprised of a number of species. Some wide and flat, some high domed, and all of them spattered randomly against the walls.

"I'm going to keep going." She told Korra.

"I'll stay here." The ranger told her, testing the strength of one of the caps with a gloved hand.

It was spongy, but surprisingly strong. From here, she could see that it wasn't the mushrooms that were glowing, but odd pods that seemed to be growing out of them. About the size of her fist, they emitted an unsettling violet light from small openings in them. Further down, she could see more of them glowing faintly in the dark on the roots and vines.

She sat there studying them for a while before she heard Ruby coming back up the rope. They hung there for a few minutes while the rogue told her that the further down, the tunnel ballooned out into something like a room. There was some air circulation down there, but even with almost two hundred feet of rope, they were about forty five feet short of the bottom.

"It's getting late. We can continue tomorrow." Ruby finally said.

"Good idea." Korra replied as she started up the rope.

* * *

"That doesn't bode well for us." Phadian sighed after Ruby told him about the tunnel's termination.

"I'll take first watch. I don't like the idea of something coming up from there." She replied as she ladled some stew into a wooden bowl.

"How's Mata'Alian?" Korra asked as she lifted her eyes to the edge of the room.

By now, Mata'Alian had already wrapped himself in his skins in the far wall and was snoring deeply.

"He's been sleeping for a while." Phadian told her, "I think his chances are good."

"In that case, I'm going to get some sleep." Korra stretched, "Wake me up for middle guard."

"I'll stagger my watch. It'll make it easier with two sets of eyes." Phadian told her as he rolled out his pallet.

"Save it for Korra." Ruby told him.

She got up, knocked out a few of the torches in the room to create some spare shadow, and hid herself in them. From one side of the room, about ten feet from the throne, she could see both doors—one had been piled with the bodies, the other spiked—and the yawning pit.

It was about three hours later that she heard a light tapping against the door piled with corpses. It was soft at first, and them more insistent. She crept over to it, leaned against the door and heard an odd combination of broken Draconic and Common come through it.

"Please...it's okay. I won't hurt you. Please let us in."

Ruby's eyes narrowed. It didn't sound goblin in nature, but that didn't mean it wasn't something even worse...She replied back in perfect Draconic, "Come back. Do not enter."

The cry that came back was desperate, "Please! There are children! It isn't safe out here!"

She cursed low under her breath, braced her back against the wall, and tossed her holstered dagger at Mogue. It struck him across the forehead and she motioned at him to come over. He grumbled, fought his way up, and waddled over.

"What's wrong?" He asked irritably.

"We have company. He says he had children with him."

"He?"

Ruby shrugged just as an increasingly desperate wail came back, "Is someone there? Please, let us in! We won't hurt you! Please help us! Help the children! They let me go!"

Mogue recognized it as a gnome and told Ruby as such. She paused, listened to him tell them, "Please...I'm hurt bad!" and stopped herself. There was no lie in his voice...only terror and pain...

"Move the bodies." She told him as she started dragging them away.

It took her only a moment with his help to clear the door. She braced her hip against it, opened it just enough to peer down, and realized that he wasn't lying...or, apparently, telling the truth...

There were eighteen children with him. Some goblins, some dwarven, and a few human...and a number of elderly goblins behind him...She started to close the door when he cried back, "Wait! Don't close the door! Please-"

"Wait here and I will get our cler-"

"You can't leave us! Please!" He howled.

"Listen to me-"

"Let us in! Please! Please, there are children!"

Ruby cursed, reasoned that his wailing would likely bring death upon them, and opened the door as she yelled over her shoulder, "Phadian! Get up! Korra, I need help!"

The cleric was the first to roll over, clutch at his sword, and stop...Tears gathered in his eyes as he watched the gnome, naked and dirty and bleeding, step into the room...The cleric from his vision...Salvation...

"Ehlonna keep you, brother!" He said, scrambling up to clasp the gnome in an embrace.

"A priest!" The gnome's smile was radiant.

Beside him, Korra stood up, sighed, and asked, "What the hell?"

Ruby watched Mogue walk into the other room behind the group, and was about to follow when she was stopped.

"Please..." The gnome turned to her, "They haven't eaten in days. Please feed them."

"My friend is putting something together now. We'll tend to your wounded." Ruby told him.

Phadian glanced around at the battered party of odd bits and pieces and asked, "Are they followers of Ehlonna?"

The gnome shook his head, "I doubt it. They were my captors, now my saviors. They were left behind."

"By?" Phadian asked.

"The goblins." The gnome told him, "I don't know why they fled..."

Phadian had a good idea...without their kind, they had panicked and fled...leaving their children and elderly behind in the dark to starve...

"I am Erky. I was sent by Holy Ehlonna to this place almost six months ago. I was with good people...but they're all gone now..."

"Sent for what purpose?" Phadian asked him.

"To stop the evil growing here." He told him.

Ruby stood up and turned to him. The Draconic rolled off her tongue easily, "What do you know about this place?"

The gnome shifted back to Draconic, telling her, "Not much...More tale than truth."

"Tell it anyway." She responded.

"About six months ago, I came to a monastery and met with an ancient elf. He was such a lovely man, so kind and sweet and good...he spoke so slowly, and I could barely hear him, but he seemed to speak to my soul-"

"We did that already, too." Ruby interrupted, "Keep going."

"He told us about his brother, who had fallen to the darkness and brought the curse upon this place...and the god that resided here..."

"God?"

"This whole place is a temple to that god."

"Is it a dragon god? Calcrix?"

"That is not the name." The gnome told her.

"We've already killed the dragon here."

"You cannot kill a god." Erky replied, "But we discovered a story..."

"Of what?"

"The fallen brother was dabbling in dark magic, and the god's wrath was the destruction of this place. The elf, from the monastery, his brother fell and was turned..."

"We already took care of that, too. He had been turned into a troll of sorts."

"The story goes that someone came here to stop the evil. In a great fight, he was forced to stake this creature to destroy it, and died himself in the process. Somehow, what he did started an even great evil..."

Ruby turned her head over her shoulder and in Common asked her party, "What monster needs to be staked to be destroyed?"

"A vampire." Korra told her.

Ruby turned back and began again in Draconic, "Was that it?"

"A vampire could be a stretch...we do not know." Erky told her.

Ruby started to say something else when Phadian broke in. His voice carried every bit of the frustration he felt. This man could help them...if Ruby would let him.

"Brother, can you please speak in Common?"

"You can have him when I'm done." Ruby snapped at him.

"No one is going to have him period!" Phadian responded.

"Sit down, cleric, before you get hurt."

"Perhaps, we could feed the children...?" Erky broke in, motioning to them.

"They'll be fed." Ruby told him, trying to say something more when Phadian grabbed her again.

"You are pushing your luck with me." Ruby hissed.

"And you're pushing yours! All that I'm asking is that we all be privy to the same information!"

"She is your leader...if she wishes to speak in Draconic..." Erky began.

"She is not our leader!" Phadian cried out in frustration.

"I don't see you getting the job done." Ruby said frankly.

* * *

The room had been a cathedral at some point...How long ago, it was impossible to tell. The goblins had certainly been true to their nature and for what had apparently been a very long time. The floor was cake in filth, dotted with piles of rotting rags, decaying bones, odd armor scraps and waste. In the back was a large pile, probably fifteen feet high and ten feet wide, of...stuff...some of it was certainly usable, some of it was just trash...

He looked up at the wall sconces, which glowed with a violet colored fungus. He wasn't sure if they were natural, or set there by the goblins...

He could have stayed longer if the yelling behind him didn't suddenly reach him...His eyes narrowed and he turned back.

* * *

"I will put you in your place if I have to, cleric!" Ruby shouted back.

"STOP!" Mogue's voice boomed and echoed through the room before he directed his burning gaze on Ruby. "It's about time you tell us what is going on. Your attitude has changed drastically and for the worse very quickly! Now you're endangering the group and if you're going to continue, you need to leave!"

The rogue turned her eyes on the dwarf, "Do you care to make me?"

"I will if I have to!" Mogue responded as he started walking forward.

How dare she fracture the group! She was threatening them all by testing the bonds of trust and love! She had _no _right! And he would _stop _her.

"Try it." Ruby told him flatly as she raised her crossbow at him.

"Okay, enough now!" Korra shouted as she tried to pull the dwarf back. It was a futile attempt that ended in her being dragged by him towards the rogue.

"If we might feed the children..." Erky began.

"Would you please feed the damn children!" Mata'Alian bellowed from the corner, "I'm trying to sleep."

"Shut up." Ruby snapped back.

The man rose, eyed her, and asked, "What's going on, sister? You are acting oddly...and I saw you talking to yourself in the village. What was that? If you are in danger, if you are straying from your path, I need to know...To help you."

"You can't help me." Ruby told him.

"Ehlonna might be-" Phadian began.

"I won't ask your bitch of a goddess to solve my problems for me!" Ruby shot back venomously.

"If you would just talk to us..." Phadian began.

"I _can't_ tell you!" The rogue yelled back.

"Can't tell us...what?" Korra asked.

Ruby sighed, looked into the eyes of her friend, and asked her for a private moment. They stepped off to the side and had a brief conversation that ended in Korra nodding and hugging the rogue hard.

They walked back and Ruby sighed, "Long story short, my soul isn't my own."

"That's not really a story you can give us in short..." Korra trailed off.

"What?" Phadian asked.

"Then whose is it?" Mogue asked.

"A demon's." She told them.

"Okay. And how did that happen?" Korra asked.

"Several years ago, I stole something I shouldn't have." She replied.

"You stole?" Mata'Alian was incredulous.

"I'm a rogue." She responded flatly, "And was trying to get by."

"I get by and I don't steal..." Mata'Alian began.

"Several years ago," Ruby reiterated, "I took a contract from a man to steal a chest. I wound up stealing an item I shouldn't have."

"What kind of item?" Mogue asked.

"A soulsteel dagger." She told him.

"So, you didn't know that it was in there?" The dwarf asked.

"I didn't." She told him, "I also didn't know that the man who had the chest shouldn't have, either. It wasn't until later that I found that out."

"So...what happened?" Korra asked.

"He found me while I was on my way to make the exchange with my contractor." Ruby said.

"So...you just signed your soul over?" Mogue asked.

"I had no idea what I was dealing with. I tried to fight it, lost, and was given a choice. He could kill me then and spend eternity torturing my soul...or I could accept a contract that _might _eventually return my soul to me."

"Has he given you any orders regarding us?" Phadian asked.

He couldn't help but look at the rogue differently...and yet, he still wanted to save her...to make her life...right...

"Yes." She told him truthfully, "He told me to kill you. Back in the village with Hank."

"You didn't, though." Korra's eyes beamed back at Ruby, "Why?"

She smiled even as she asked it; she loved Ruby, would fight to protect her, and wanted to see her learn to trust her in return.

"I'm soulless, not heartless." Ruby told her.

"So...why were you sent here?" The ranger continued.

"My master collects information. In this case, he wanted me to find the True Name of whatever is sprouting those demonic saplings. I suspect he intends to use it as a weapon."

"Okay. So...does he contact your or do you contact him?" Korra asked.

"For the most part, he finds me. Occasionally, I'm forced to contact him." Ruby replied.

"So he might already be watching us..." Korra trailed off uneasily.

"I doubt it, but it is possible." The rogue told her.

"This would have been the kind of thing to share with us beforehand." Phadian sighed.

Ruby rolled her eyes in exasperation, "Yes, cleric. I'm of course going to confide in you, or in our dwarf, or our ranger who follows Ehlonna, or Mata'Alian, who falls within her domain."

"I don't fall in her domain!" Mata'Alian responded, "I'm a son of Thor!"

Ruby sighed.

"But..." Erky began, "Ehlonna has helped you. She has brought you friends and allies. You have fought together in combat, tended each others' wounds, and are alive still because of her love."

Ruby turned on him in Draconic, "The time for Ehlonna to help me would have been _before _my mother met my father in the woods!"

He spoke back lovingly, "But then you would not exist."

"Which is all I've ever wanted!" Ruby cried back.

Erky's eyes suddenly shadowed and he leapt up. Catching her by the corset of her leather armor, he dragged her over to the open pit, held her over it, and demanded to know if she wanted to die.

"Answer me!" He howled in Draconic, "If this is what you want, take it! I'll give it to you freely."

"There is a large difference in dying with my soul in my own possession and you damning me to an eternity of torment. Do you think your goddess would approve?"

Erky smiled suddenly at her, and threw her back to the ground. There was fire left yet in that rogue and he would find a way to nurture it into blazing flame!

Ruby, however, grabbed her crossbow, spun hard on her heel, and aimed the bolt at the gnome. In almost the same second, Phadian stepped between her and the gnome, snapped his bow over his shoulder, and sighted an arrow on her.

"Stand down." He told her.

"Care to test your shot, cleric?" She hissed back.

"ENOUGH ALREADY!" Korra shoved her way between them, forcing Phadian to drop his bow and glaring over her shoulder at Ruby until she lowered her weapon, "Enough! This stops right fucking now! No one is killing anyone tonight! We are going to feed the children, get them cleaned up, and get some fucking sleep!"

"And what about her?" Phadian asked, his eyes flickering to Ruby.

"I've had ample opportunity to kill you if I wanted to. If you still need to bind me for the night to feel safe, then by all means, do it." The rogue responded.

"No one is binding anyone, either!" Korra shouted, "Let's all just settle the fuck down and get some sleep!"

"Please..." Erky began tentatively, "You are scaring the children..."

Korra's green eyes flickered to the corner where they had all started to gather around Mata'Alian, seeking protection. Sighing, she lowered her voice, smiled, and said, "Let's eat!"

Ruby picked herself up, dusted herself off, and went and sat down against the wall as she watched Erky and Korra begin doling out stew to the children. Not long after, Mata'Alian walked over to her, and told her to get some sleep.

"I'm awake." She told him plainly.

"Then I will stay awake with you." He told her.

He could smell the fear, the pain on her...and worried that she might be compelled to leave them. If that was to be, at the very least, he needed to make sure he could go with her. Phadian would watch out for the rest of the group but on her own, Ruby...so small and delicate...would not last long in the dark.

"You're a good man, Mata'Alian." She finally told him.

"And you are a good person...even if you do steal."

Ruby smiled, laughed, patted him on the back, and fell asleep not long after. Mata'Alian, assured that she would not leave at least for the night, asked Mogue to keep watch and protect the children.

"My friend, I will protect us all." The dwarf told him, glancing briefly at the sleeping rogue.

* * *

_It was so damn cold...everything hurt...Korra wasn't even sure where she was...was she sleeping? Why was it so cold? If only there was a fire..._

Mogue, seeing her stirring in her sleep, walked over in time to see a flame spring to life beside her. She snored lightly, snuggled closer to it, and sat up suddenly.

_She was so thirty...She felt so dry and burned...like too many days in high noon sun had finally started to dehydrate her...and then suddenly, she had a glass..._

Mogue watched the ranger sit up, a goblet appearing in her hand, take a drink of water, and fall back against her pallet as the chalice disappeared.

_It was beautiful! Like the spring fields her father would take her to so she could learn the roots and berries. So she could be one with the small animals that ran in the fields...so that the sun could shine on her and she could watch the horizon and wonder what lay beyond her doorway..._

The floor around her sprung forward with flowers, yellow and red blooming against the dark stone for a fraction of a second before withering to sparkling nothing. And then she was still.

* * *

Ruby woke up early the next day and dug into her rations, even though Mata'Alian was cooking. She had no desire to speak to anyone, and the idea of even being in the same room as the cleric made her skin crawl. She had risked her life for him several times and his response was to side with another Ehlonna fanatic when her life is on the line. She was not going to forget that slight.

She harnessed herself up silently, tied off more rope, threw it down into the darkness, and was starting to sight her handholds when Korra walked over to her.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"I'm going back down. We were close to the bottom." Ruby replied.

"Then I'm going, too."

"Why?" The rogue asked her.

"Because if you're going to risk your life, you're not doing it alone." Korra smiled as she tied on her makeshift harness.

"You shouldn't throw your life away. Don't do what I did."

"I'm going to help you get your soul, and your life, back. I promise. I dare that demon to show up because I will kick his ass."

Ruby stopped, blinked back a tear, and smiled, "Do me a favor. If that happens, just run. I'd rather die knowing you were safe."

"If I wanted safe, I would never have left my front door." Korra told her.

* * *

The violet glow grew steadily brighter as they neared the bottom until they were standing on a dirt floor surrounded by pillars of softly pulsing purple fungus. They were massive, some towering twenty feet high...and against the far side of the room stood two figures.

Ruby saw them first: they were tall, gaunt, and cloaked. They didn't give any indication that they had seen her, but she couldn't see their eyes from that distance. She tried to step forward, and was hit by a sickening sensation; it was like someone had concentrated hate and blood into one distillation and sprayed it in the room. She felt suddenly like she might choke and reached up to tap Korra's lower back.

The ranger looked down, saw Ruby press her finger against her lips, flick her eyes over to the two motionless creatures, and gesture to go back up. Korra stared at them for a moment, felt her gut twist, and nodded.

They raced back up the rope as silently as they could, yanking on it hard to alert the others. About half way up, the felt themselves being pulled and darted the rest of the length of the silk, over the lip of the pit, and onto the ground. Frantically, hand over hand, they yanked the rope up and out of the pit and threw it to the side.

_ "_What happened?" Mogue asked.

"There's something down there." Ruby told him. "I can't tell what they are, but they're tall and thin...too thin to be human. I don't know if they saw us or not."

"We have to do something." Phadian said.

"Like what?" Korra asked, "We can't just leave the kids!"

"I didn't suggest that." Phadian told her flatly as he looked over his shoulder.

Mata'Alian was deep in play with the goblins; they would whack at him with sticks and odd stones and he would push them over, grunt something, pounce over them, and fall suddenly to his side so they could try again. The dwarven and human children, by contrast, watched with a sort of bewilderment as Erky attempted to engage them in more race-appropriate play. Mata'Alian must have heard them because he piped up long enough to suggest that they might want to push the elderly goblins into the pit, because they were incapable of helping.

The horror in Ruby's eyes restored Phadian's faith that she might be saved. He and Erky had spoken at length after she had fallen asleep. Together, they had meditated and tried to commune with Ehlonna. Eventually, Erky had come to him with a prophecy that they would lay down their lives to save her, but the rest of the vision had been too muddled to glean anymore from. In the end, Ehlonna didn't grace them with a personal visit; he was frustrated, but Phadian would wait into eternity for her.

"You had some interesting dreams last night." Mogue said suddenly, his eyes turning to Korra.

"Like what?" She asked.

"Do me a favor. Look at the fire and start it again." He said.

Korra shrugged and reached for her flint and steel when he stopped her, "Try without those."

The ranger opened her mouth to say something when she realized that she thought she could. She had to focus on it, and she had to say some words, and in the right order...but they were there...The words, the chants...the focus...and the dead wood suddenly sprang to orange and red life.

"I didn't know you could do that." Ruby told her, her eyebrow lilted up in curiosity and a silent question.

"Neither did I." Korra shrugged.

"Let's try something else." Mogue said, taking the ranger's hand and leading her into the cathedral. "Try to find anything magical in here."

Korra moved to protest when the words suddenly came to her. It took her a few tries before it felt..._right_ but as soon as she had uttered them, she realized she could make out several glowing objects in the room. She pointed them out, or as many as she could before the blue aura around them faded, and let Mogue bring them back. She did it again, and again and on the last try realized that there was something glowing in Ruby's front pocket. She thought to herself that perhaps it was something she had on her before...or something the demon forced her to carry, and decided to say nothing.

Eventually, Mogue had managed to lay out a number of items. Two were armor shirts, one of mithril and one of dragonmail, several silver rings with a moonstone setting, a few glass vials, and a scroll. As they tried to identify them, Erky took the opportunity to go through the filth and recover his holy symbol—crucial for gaining his spells for the day—his weapons, and his armor. He moved into the next room to pray as Mogue began explaining the finer points of sorcery to Korra.

Ultimately, he suggested she take the mithril shirt. It was a massive upgrade from her current armor, and would give her more protection from evil magic. She agreed, shimmied into it, and realized that it fit her quite well.

That was when she heard a voice, echoing deep in her mind, screaming at her: "You are mine! Kill Kakavellium! Kill him!"

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

_**Chapter Twelve: Strain **_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own D and D but the characters within are intellectual property. **_

They stayed one more night to allow everyone to recover and decided to move again in the morning. The issue of what to do with the elderly goblins and the children, though, remained unclear. Mata'Alian was still willing to throw them down into the pit, something that everyone else strongly disagreed with. Erky had volunteered to stay with them, but Phadian and Korra pointed out that they would likely need more than one cleric. Ruby had argued for leaving them in the cathedral and spiking the door when Phadian pointed out that _if _they didn't return, those in their care would starve to death behind a stone door.

"Let's leave them here with some food." Korra said, "None of them will be able to wield a weapon, but at least they'll be comfortable until we come back."

Mata'Alian, clearly not satisfied with the decision, ultimately agreed to it and left behind several packs of rations. Ruby donated five of hers, tucking away the other two, and Phadian left behind all the waterskins he had to spare.

In the end, it would up up being Ruby and Korra who went down first. It took them a while, moving slowly and deliberately and pointing out handholds as they did, but eventually they reached the bottom of the pit.

As she helped Phadian down, Korra motioned silently to the two gaunt figures standing guard over the door on the far west wall. He noted them, whispered something to her, and began walking towards them.

"They're stone!" He called back.

The cloaks were indeed flowing, but they were made of the same red-veined marble that had been so prolific throughout the old citadel. The faces and hands were carved from obsidian and the eyes, mirror polished, reflected back the light of the glowing fungus.

Ruby shrugged, smiled at Korra, and began to search the room. She was not far from an opening in the wall where the stone had been chipped away when she stepped on something. She felt the plate give underneath her foot and sprang out of the way as the ceiling opened up. A boulder, almost as large as she was, crashed to the ground with a rumbling echo.

"That's our rogue," Korra teased her as she helped her back to her feet, "You keep finding those traps for us."

"Shut up." Ruby sighed back, allow the corners of her lips turned up in a smile, "Let me know when you guys want me to take a break. I'm happy to let you find the traps, disable the devices, and open the locks anytime you'd like."

"I think I'll pass." The ranger told her.

Mogue, drawn first by Ruby's curse and the activation trap, and then by the tunnel into the stone, walked towards it. It was a rough tunnel, certainly not of Dwarven make, that opened into the dirt for several hundred feet before terminating. He hunched to walk into it when he realized he was being watched...It was a massive creature in the rough shape of a panther with six legs. Springing from its back were a number of tentacles that ended in large pads. Ringing those pads were three rows of needle-like teeth. Mog moved back a foot, watched it creep forward, and realized that it stopped when he did...

He drew his ax and motioned for Korra to come over. The Ranger, clearly confused, did as she was asked and cursed as she pulled her bow. Behind her, Ruby saw her beginning to notch an arrow, and slipped into the shadows. She crept forward, unsure of what they were looking at until it moved...

Mata'Alian, having apparently just seen it, too, charged reckless in with his rapier and mace. He missed spectacularly and met with a vicious strike across his face by one of the toothed pads. He stumbled back and Mogue ran it. He slammed down hard with his ax, and met with no resistance from flesh. It was like cutting air...

"Damn!" Korra hissed as she lowered the tip of her air and released it. It flew over the creature and buried itself somewhere in the dirt behind it.

Phadian, drawing his sword, moved in and slashed as it. He hit something, but in the melee he wasn't entirely sure what. He turned as Ruby appeared from the shadows to flank the creature and tried to stab it. She missed, stumbling but catching herself in time to clear a path for Mata'Alian.

He struck down at the creature with his mace only to be struck against the side. The blow sent him reeling the opposite way and he almost crashed into Mogue. The dwarf, seeing an opportunity, charged it. He was stopped halfway in when the creature's tentacle clamped down on his shoulder, bit deep, and ripped a chunk of flesh from his body.

"Mogue!" Phadian was stepping forward when he heard something behind him...

Erky was chanting a spell that Phadian knew he shouldn't be: Death Watch. It was a powerful spell often used for the purposes of reaping those close to death. Through the lens of the magic, Erky would be able to see the life auras of those around him and, by their strength, who was close to death...

He stopped contemplating it when a tentacle snaked around his waist. He was yanked bodily from the ground and brought to the mouth of the creature. It bit deep into his abdomen and threw him to the floor.

Blood began to pour out of the cleric, mixing with the dirt into a morbid mud. He scrambled back up, clamping his hand over the wound, and took a step backwards. Erky eyed him, shook his head, turned back to watch the battle and began to chant another spell. Phadian recognized it instantly as a cure spell.

Mata'Alian charged again and clipped something across the shoulder...that was when he realized that creature was standing to the left...its image was to the right...He turned hard on his heel, slammed his rapier down through something like bone, and lifted the creature's skull from its body with a sweep of his mace.

The blood hadn't even finished settling in the air before the gnome walked in and touched his palm lightly to Mata'Alian back. The man's wounds had finished closing even before the fingertips of the gnome had been drawn back.

He grunted his thanks and began to hack away at the body. No one bothered to disturb his ritual until he walked forward and gave a claw to Phadian and Mogue before declaring, "I'm not going to eat this. It stinks."

"At least we know what we're not having for dinner!" Korra smiled playfully.

"Does anything get you down?" Ruby asked over her shoulder as she stepped forward and started to inspect the guarded door.

Korra, however, suddenly realized something was amiss...Following back into the tunnel of the displacer beast, she found a rack of weapons...and the tracks of something much, much larger...The prints in the dank soil were bigger than her spread hand...and less than two hours old...

"Raid what you're going to, but we need to get moving." She said as she stood up.

"The door is unlocked." Ruby told her as she looked it over.

She waited a few minutes, checking the doorframe and the ground until the rest of the group convened behind her. When they were ready, she pushed the door open.

The two statues above her creaked as their stone heads turned. Their arms lifted, each holding a staff weighting several hundred pounds, and turned in tandem to slam them down on top of her. Ruby, however, was faster. She tumbled out of the way, coming up on her feet on the other side.

"Nice reflexes." Korra smiled as she climbed over the junction where the two stone weapons met.

"Thanks." The rogue replied.

The hallway proved to be untampered with, which wound up being cold comfort considering that it ended suddenly in a shattered pile of rock and a tunnel that cut in a diagonal through the ruined citadel.

"Well...damn..." Korra sighed, "What now?"

"I vote going right." Phadian replied.

"Right." Ruby chimed in.

"I'll go wherever you want me to." Mata'Alian told them.

"Let's just go right." Mogue said.

"Done deal." The red-haired rogue said back as she turned down the tunnel.

Now inside of it, she could see that it broke away at several intervals, forming a kind of rough net that transversed that level. She chose the first break in the mud and immediately regretted it.

Standing not ten feet in front of her was a Mephit...

Reasoning she had no chance of hiding and given it had already seen her, she decided her best option was diplomacy.

"Hello, creature of the wild, beloved by Ehlonna." The rogue began.

"I'm looking for my wife." He replied.

"Wife?" Ruby asked.

"Yes. She's been trapped here for almost two hundred years." The creature replied.

"We did meet a Mephit sometime ago." Ruby cursed herself silently. She had to be careful here...a partial truth might save them...a white lie might end them...

"Where?"

"She's upstairs." Ruby told the sprite, holding her face held less fear than her heart. Had she known the Mephit was mated, she would have run sooner than fight it and risk the wrath of her lover...

"Why?" He asked, "What aren't you telling me?"

"We left her there after we freed her."

"How did you free her?"

"We broke open the keg and the pipes, like she asked us to."

"She's up that way and over." Mog told him, pointing at the ceiling and motioning over his shoulder.

"You aren't going to try to kill us, right?" Korra asked with a tense smile, "You know...the whole half-elf thing?"

"I mean...the ones who imprisoned her did kind of look like you...the ears and the eyes..." The Mephit began.

Phadian elbowed the ranger and hissed, "Shut up!"

They were in no shape, morale or otherwise, to fight _another _elemental. If Korra gave the secret away...Korra, trying to lead the Mephit away from them, was going to wind up pinning absolute, undeniable guilt on them...

"What did you say?" The Mephit turned its intense gaze on the cleric.

"She's free. We have no idea where she is." He responded, tripping over his own words.

"We sent her on her way back home." Korra told him.

Phadian resisted the urge to smack her as the water elemental gazed back at the ranger, "You _sent _her home?! That means you sent her back to her plane! You _killed _her?!"

"No!" Korra shouted back, hoping he didn't sense the lie. "We freed her and sent her on her _way_. She told _us _she was going home."

"How long ago was this?" The elemental asked.

"I don't know." Korra shrugged, turning to Phadian, "Do you?"

The Mephit pushed for an answer, "How many days?"

"We have no idea how long we've been down here. Without the light of the sun, I have no idea if our circadian rhythms even match the time above this ruin." Ruby replied.

"Then I'll be on my way. Thank you." The Mephit replied as he turned down the opposite side of the tunnel and burrowed his way down back into the earth.

"Freaking Mephits..." The Ranger sighed after an uncomfortably long minute.

"Let's just keep going." Mogue responded, giving Ruby a gentle nudge.

The rogue said nothing, peered into the dark, and continued walking. Some minutes later, they came to a single door at the end of the dirt tunnel. It had orginally been carved with a dragon n red-veined marble, but was now little more than a shattered mass of stone. It had been rent through, probably by a large blade, and cracked in several smaller areas by what must have been a blunt weapon.

"Think we can open it?" Korra asked. There was no handle on the door, but it also didn't appear to be locked...

"I think so." Ruby told her. There was no locking mechanism, and no magic surrounding it. But if the mass of the hinges were any indication, it would be heavy.

"Give me a hand." Korra told the Dwarf, bracing her hips against the door.

Mogue grunted something in response, waddled over, and planted his palms against the marble.

They shoved on the count of three and for a second, it looked like it might not budge. And then it began to creak and groan as their combined force moved it backwards. It opened, eventually, into a room that had probably been a prayer room. Standing in the middle of it, surrounded by a number of shattered tiles in red-veined marble, was a slim iron pedastal bearing a dragon holding a tray in gold.

"What do you think it is?" Korra asked.

"A dragon?" Mogue replied sarcastically.

"What do you think the tray is for?" Phadian asked.

He could sense it was magical in nature, but in what way, he wasn't sure.

Korra set several gold coins on the tray, wondering if needed an offering. When that failed to move it, Ruby set down the moonstone ring she had found from the goblin king. Nothing happened.

"Maybe..." The rogue trailed off as she lifted her dagger from her belt and sliced open the pad of her thumb. Everything else in that foul place had been evil...and if it were a vampiric parasite, blood would move it.

To her immense relief, nothing happened when she allowed several bright red beads to drop onto the gold tray.

"Maybe it just want to be polished." Korra shrugged, casting a prestidigitation.

It responded immediately, unfurling its wings and beginning to slide back on a track laid into the pedastal.

"It apparently responds to magic." Mogue said, turning back to glance at the clerics.

Phadian stepped forward and cast one of his few remaining spells: cure light wounds. The dragon began to hunch forward, as if to bring its feet down onto the pedastal, and slid back a fraction of an inch more.

Erky aided with his final spell for the day, leaving Phadian to cast his remainder. In the end, Korra used her last spell to little avail. With no other options,they would be forced to stay the night. Korra, wide awake, agreed to first watch.

She was nearing the end of her shift, and just starting to doze off, when she heard something at the door. It creaked and jarred slightly, as if something was trying to open it...It would pause for a moment and then try again, change where it was applying pressure, and grumble to itself. Whatever, or whoever it was, gave up about half an hour later when the door still refused to budge.

It was just as she was waking Mogue for his watch that she noticed something else: the dragon statue was beginning to ease back up into a standing position.

The movement accelerated through the other two shifts, and come morning it was like it had never moved at all. They discussed simply leaving it over a stew Mata'Alian had cooked for them when Mogue brought up an excellent point. It had reacted hugely to Korra's prestidigitation, and only slightly to the clerics' magic.

"Maybe she has the right kind of magic." He suggested.

The ranger shrugged as she set down her empty bowl and stood up. She cast it repeatedly in rapid order, exhausting her spells for the day. By the time she was done, the carving's feet were planted against the pedastal and it was starting to slide back. Erky cast once, using a cure moderate wounds spell that eased the statue back some three or four inches.

"I won't do anymore," He told them, "I should save my spells for when we need them."

Phadian eyed him, but said nothing. He stood up and cast every last spell he had for the day. He was starting to lose hope that they would be successful when he heard the pedastal click behind the dragon to lock it into place.

Mogue approached it and realized that it had opened up to reveal a hole in the stone that held something. Somewhat apprehensive, he reached it to take hold of the object buried almost shoulder deep in the stone vault, and pulled up a smooth stone mace.

Without warning, he felt a power infuse him and a voice echo in the back of his mind: "My name is Ashwir. Please, bring me to my father. Use me and I will help you!"

Mogue's gaze narrowed as he asked it, "Who is your father?"

"Kekavellium."

"What happened in this place?" The dwarf asked silently.

"Kekavellium's brother angered the god. Rendering us, and himself, undead. He grows still in his unnatural sleep. I can see him all around me. I can hear him in the air and feel him in the soil beneath your feet. And I can see him upon that body of that girl."

Mogue's eyes darted up to Korra's chest, where the mithril shirt was gleaming like silver in the poor light.

The mace seemed suddenly sad, "She will be with him..."

"I think you should take off that shirt." Mogue said to Korra as he lowered the mace.

Korra opened her mouth when she heard something thunder in the back of her mind. A wordless, horrible command that she knew she should fear...but it was so easy to trust it...

"Why don't you put down the mace?" Korra asked back.

"Take off the armor, and I'll put down the mace." Mogue responded.

"What's the problem, you two?" Ruby finally asked.

"I think her armor has possessed her." Mogue said.

Ruby's eyes softened as she turned to look at Korra. The ranger denied that she was possessed by anything and was quick to point out that Mogue might well be the one posing a danger to himself and them.

"If there's any doubt, why don't you talk to Ehlonna?" Ruby suggested, "I'm sure the clerics would be happy to help."

Phadian smiled at her but was shot down by Korra's remark, "I am well capable of speaking to my goddess in private."

The ranger said nothing more as she took a seat in the far corner, folded her hands, closed her eyes, and went still.

The group, of course, had no way of knowing that she had no intention of contacting Ehlonna. The ranger sat by herself quietly for sometime, seething inside. Mogue was just jealous now that her status in the group had changed. Whatever he was holding was simply manipulating those feelings, she told herself. There was no need to embroil Ehlonna in a situation Korra already had under control.

Sometime later, she stood up, shook herself off, and said, "Ehlonna told me nothing."

Ruby turned to her suddenly, but try as she might, she could detect no lie in Korra's voice. Likewise, when Mogue suggested that in itself might be a sign, she felt no evil intent from him.

"Am I to assume that no answer is a negative or a positive?" Korra retorted.

"The mace _asked _me to help it. What has your armor told you?" The dwarf asked.

"What better way to ply a man that by asking for favors?" Korra snapped back, "The armor told me I needed to kill Kekavellium, who is the cause of this blight."

"Odd, my mace told me Kekavellium is the good one in this plight."

In the private spaces shared by each, the mace and armor echoed back, "The truth will come out when we face our brothers!"

Mogue, tired of arguing and sore, sat down on the ground. Without realizing what he was doing, he touched the mace to his chest and felt the healing power of it flow through him. That, alone, was proof enough for him. Korra's armor, he thought to himself, had to go.

"If we're going to be here all night," Ruby finally began, "I'll take first and second watch. At least until I can figure out which one of you to trust."

Her teal gaze on the ranger and the dwarf was blazing.

"I won't hurt her." Mogue told the rogue.

"And I won't hurt him." Korra replied.

Ruby said nothing.

"Allow me to take second." Mata'Alian finally said, "If you'll cook breakfast in the morning, I'll wake you for third."

"I'll agree to it." Ruby told him.

The watches that night were quiet, bothered only by internal tension. Come midnight, Mata'Alian relieved Ruby and again promised to wake her at third. He never did, however.

In the morning, Phadian roused the rogue with a sympathetic smile and quickly backed away. Her eyes were liquid blue fire and he had no intention of catching himself in that mess.

"Why didn't you wake me?" She asked Mata'Alian coldly as she stood up.

"It is third watch. Something happened and I woke everyone up." He replied, stirring a pot of boiling broth.

"You're a terrible liar." Ruby told him, seeing right through the poorly plotted deception.

Her anger boiled up before she could stop it, and she lashed out at him with the back of her hand. Mata'Alian, however, was faster and caught it. He stood up, towering over her, and said, "Look, I know that you're uncomfortable with the clerics and that this situation hasn't helped. However, you need to sleep as much as everyone else. It is peaceful right now, don't make it any worse."

His hand tightened on her fist in a silent warning before he shoved her back hard enough to make her stumble. The rogue, however, just glared at him until Phadian walked over to her, gripped her by the shoulders, and brought her back to sit down.

In the quiet of the early morning, she turned to him and said, "I know that you don't like me. But I'm asking you to watch our for her."

Phadian's eyes followed the trail of Ruby's teal ones right ot Korra.

"She is the only friend I have here."

Phadian sighed and squeezed Ruby's bicep reassuringly, "When will you learn that you aren't alone. I will watch out for her, and for you."

"You were willing to let me die, cleric." The rogue told him, her hateful stare falling on the gnome's back.

"He wasn't going to hurt you, Ruby. But if he had, I promise that I would have followed you down into the dark and killed him when I clawed my way back up."

He saw a flicker, faint and rapidly dying, of shock in the rogue's eyes and then nothing. The cold blue steel of her eyes returned, and they said nothing more.

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

_**Chapter Thirteen: As the Leaves of Fall**_

_**Disclaimer: I do now own D and D, but the characters within are intellectual property. **_

They stayed for two more grueling nights. Though none of them slept well with the threat of internal attack hanging over them, eventually they had to move on. With no evidence that one or the other way lying, the group came to an uneasy truce. Assured that, at least for the moment, Korra and Mogue wouldn't harm each other, they decided to move west down the dirt tunnel.

It terminated in a natural cavern that had apparently been partially collapsed when the citadel was toppled into the darkness. One wall, now a shattered pile of rock, had been sheared away to reveal a number of wide tunnels cutting into the damp soil.

Ruby took a step in and saw something move...like it had heard it...Something large beneath the soil squirmed, disturbing the pile of crushed stone. It shimmied up into the wall, bulging the tile out with its girth.

The rogue motioned to it, but only Mogue found it. He moved to put his ax when the grounded suddenly began to boil. Steam, driven from the damp soil by the intense heat, wafted up into the air in time with a giant worm.

Its head was cone shaped and red-hot. Its body, thicker than most trees, was heavily plated by something like chitin. It appeared eyeless, but if one of them moved, its unnatural head swiveled with them.

Erky stepped back and began casting a spell that sent a chill down Phadian's spine: Death Watch. He pulled his hammer from his belt and watched.

Ruby pulled her sword short and disappeared into the shadows of the room. She was starting to circle around it when Mogue hacked at it with his ax. He missed when the creature moved to the left, apparently sensing the vibrations in the floor. Behind him, Phadian pulled his sword, tried to catch it along the junction of its head and neck, and missed.

Hurrying around it, and hoping the distraction in front of it would keep its attention, Ruby appeared from the darkness and stabbed down. Her sword hit the carapace of the creature, which reeled back and dove into the soil, tearing the blade from her hand.

It barreled suddenly out of the side of the one the walls and at Mata'Alian. The man swung his weapons up into a crossguard and the creature bounced off of the rapier and onto the ground. Phadian charged it from the side, but the worm struck him first. Slamming into his hip, the creature sent the cleric rolling over it...and onto his own blade.

"Phadian!" Korra's shrieked carried enough horror for them all.

Mata'Alian, now enraged, swung at it, trying to catch it between his two weapons. He failed when the creature shot between them, knocking him away.

Korra tried to stab at it with her long spear, missing spectacularly when the creature squirmed away.

In the midst of the melee, Erky finally charged forward. He knelt beside Phadian, gripped the hilt of the sword, and ripped it from the cleric's chest. Phadian's scream rose like the fine bloody mist into the air, and died as Erky began to heal him. He was still staring up into the gnome's face when the cleric collapsed on top of him, and the smell of burning flesh filled the room.

The worm was now burrowing _into _Erky from behind.

"Hold on!" Ruby shouted, yanking her dagger from her belt and trying to stab the creature from behind.

It must have felt her coming, because it reared back suddenly, throwing Ruby to the ground, and charged Mogue. Korra, faster on her feet, stabbed down at it and, though she missed, the creature pivoted to the left to avoid her.

In the center of the room, Phadian frantically cast another spell to heal the gnome. He had scarcely finished it when Erky opened his eyes and began trying to crawl off of the half-elven cleric. Phadian, silently apologizing, shoved him to his feet, grabbed his blade, and stood up.

He watched as Korra missed with a spear thrust and as Ruby tripped in an attempt to stab it before he realized where it was: On top of him.

Phadian rolled with the blow, managing to avoid damage and come up on his feet as the thing flew over him. Mata'Alian and Mogue both charged it, missed it, and barely managed to avoid taking each other out.

"Die, already!" Korra yelled, nailing it to the floor with her spear. To her amazement, it stilled and began to cool, "So...what now?"

Ruby shrugged to herself and began slicing the creature open. She hadn't hoped to find anything more than worm guts, but to her amazement, glittering up at her from the slime, were two sapphires and one diamond. She pocketed them, and though Phadian seemed to be watching her, he didn't comment.

Korra, as the rogue rose, offered to clean her up. It was one that Ruby was quick to take her up on.

"This whole magic thing is pretty cool." She told the red-haired half elf.

"You stick to the magic. I'll stick to the trap finding."

"With the way you find traps, we need another healer." Korra teased her.

Ruby rolled her eyes playfully, and told the ranger to shut up.

Something sparkled behind the two women, catching Mogue's attention even from across the room. He waddled over to, began inspecting the wall, and realized he was looking at the singular largest crystal of sapphire he had ever seen. He began tapping at the surrounding rock, trying to determine exactly how wide it was. Confident that he could lift it away, he began hammering away in a wide circle.

About half an hour later, he was holding a bar of solid sapphire that was almost two feet long and a foot wide, and a nice sack of chipped sapphire pieces he was sure could be sold once they reached a town.

"It's getting late." He told them as he tied it to his belt.

"I'll take first." Ruby told them.

* * *

Her dreams were dark, twisting labyrinths filled with nameless horrors. Shadows that crept through thin light, red eyes in the miasma, screaming laughs, and the scent of blood. It was their hands...their cold, hateful hands closing around her wrists and her ankles, that started the nightmare again.

She couldn't wake up fast enough, and the agonizing slap of a board against the bare soles of her feet brought her around. She was screaming even before she knew why, and staring into their colds eyes.

"Are you awake yet?" The goblin hissed at her with a smirk, "If not, we can do it again."

Maple flinched back from his face, so cold and dark and full of amusement. For a moment, she wasn't sure if she would have the strength to hold out for another day...another day of gnawing hunger and raw thirst and so much pain...

And then they set down an orange in front of her and remembered why she held out: It looked safe enough...except for the dark aura that it radiated. Her skin suddenly went cold.

"Eat it." The goblin told her.

"I refuse." Maple spat back with more fire than she thought she had left.

"Eventually," The goblin smirked, "You will."

The halfling said nothing back, but deep in her soul, she knew what her answer was: She would sooner starve.

She wasn't sure how much time passed before the door opened up again. This time, though, it was a dire rat that came through the door. At first, she felt a kind of sick relief...maybe it would just kill her and end her torment.

And then she realized the torment had only begun: as it slithered into the light, she realized it was being eaten from the inside out. Writhing up from its patchy fur and from its dry mouth were a number of root tendrils. From its stomach and haunches bubbled up unnatural tumors, like fungus festering in the dark. She had no doubt that, if her will failed her, she would end up just like it...

Without warning, it hissed in pain and fell onto its side. It tightened in rigor all too fast, drawing its legs up in its dying agony, and stilled...

One of the goblins came into the room, prodded the corpse with his foot, and laughed. He grunted something in Orcish and two more followed it. One held a notepad and several pens and said nothing to her as he took a seat in the corner.

The other one pulled a foul-looking dagger from its belt and began cutting at the creature. He dissected it slowly, starting with the tendrils and then cutting out the great bulging tumors. He threw the assorted pieces into a pile that the studious goblin began to pick through. Every so often, he would pick something up, inspect it in the poor candlelight, and began making notes.

At one point, the master of her tortures turned his eyes on Maple and threw a tumor at her feet, "Are you hungry yet, little one?"

Maple bit back disgust and met his gaze with her own hard stare, "Never."

He began to approach her, probably to hurt her again, when the academic among them grunted at him. Her torturer turned away and began dissecting the tumor he was offered, but she was sure that she could see the promise of retribution in his eyes...

They had just left her, dragging the rat with them, when, as the oranges did every two hours, the fruit in front of her began to mottle. A thin white ash spread over it, and it began to soften before it finally disintegrated into a tangle of writhing maggots...

* * *

"I don't fancy risking the Underdark." Mogue told them in the morning as he eyed the hallway that seemed to dip off suddenly.

"Yeah...I'm all for avoiding that." Korra agreed.

"Then we're heading west." Ruby said as she turned down the corridor and began walking.

At the end of the hallway, about twenty minutes later, they came to a singular door that opened into a hallway. Lining the walls at regular intervals, intersecting the spacing between a number of slightly ajar doors, where a number of low noises were emanating from, were lines of silver statues...all shaped like the twelve dragons in the temple room...

"Stay here." Ruby whispered.

She slipped into the shadows that the torches cast against the walls and started creeping across the room. She started at the nearest door. It wound up being nothing more than a dark room for the storage of extra weapons. There were a few barrels filled with weapons and several racks, but nothing more. Moving across the room, following the flow of the shadows, she came to the middle room on the south side.

There were two goblins working on cutting apart a dire rat. At first, Ruby was sure they were hacking it apart for spare meat, and then realized what they were doing: They were dissecting it, removing a number of bulbous tumors that were discarded to the side. In the poor light, she almost didn't see a third goblin reach for one of the tumors and begin jotting down some notes. Occasionally, the grunted something in a language she vaguely recognized...and then remembered she had heard something similar when Phadian was speaking to the goblin children...

Suspicious, but realizing she was working on short time, she moved back across to the north side of the walls to the middle door. Inside, she found two goblins working on repairing some dented plate armor. Next to them were a number of leather pieces they had given up on sewing. Hugging close to the wall, she crept to the last door on the north side. In the darkness, she surveyed a set up kegs. On two elevated stands were barrels that two goblins were stomping around in. A tube, running from the first one, filtered into another barrel that emptied into a third. The third was elevated over a small flame, and the strong smell of ethanol wafted from the room.

Somewhat nauseated, Ruby moved to the last door on the south side. It was extremely dark, and if not for her enhanced vision, she wouldn't have seen the pallets on the floor at all...or the subtle rise and fall of breathing coming from two of them.

Holding her breath, she moved back to the group and gave them the run down.

"There are three of them dissecting a dire rat in the second room on the north wall."

"Dissecting?" Phadian asked, "Are you sure?"

That implied a certain amount of intelligent intent unnatural in goblins...the scenarios running through his mind were disturbing, at best.

"I'm sure. One of them is taking notes." The rogue told him.

"How many are there?" Mogue asked.

"At least six, probably more." She responded.

"Fuck..." Korra responded simply.

Ruby's teal eyes turned to Phadian, "You speak Orcish, correct?"

"Yes. So does Mata'Alian." The cleric replied.

Ruby weighed her options. As much as she trusted Mata'Alian, she wasn't sure that he could avoid the impulse to charge...thus bringing the rest of the horde down on top of them...

"Cleric, with me." She finally said, phasing back into the darkness.

Phadian shrugged, and followed...poorly. He just couldn't cling close enough to the wall for the shadows to hide him, and he wasn't even three steps in before Ruby turned around and slapped him hard against the bicep.

"Would you shut up?" She hissed, "Do you want them to hear us?"

Phadian shook his head sheepishly and peered around the door. The first thing he heard was the nearest goblin ask his comrades, "Did you hear that?" And then the creature's head swiveled up and there eyes met.

The creature screeched back over his shoulder, "Kill the girl!" Then he pulled his blade, and charged Phadian.

The one huddled over the dire rat stood up and sprinted towards a door in the back of the room. He threw it open, and disappeared into the dark.

Ruby heard Mata'Alian give a bellow of rage a fraction of a second before Phadian was shoved bodily through the doorway and into the approaching goblin.

"For fuck's sake..." Ruby sighed to herself, gripping her dagger and pushing her hips against the wall. She would wait for an opportunity, and then make her move.

At least that was her plan until she heard a pitiful scream coming from the room beyond the carcass of the dire rat.

She swiveled around to face the door in time to see Phadian miss the goblin. Korra ran up behind her, spear in hand, and managed a lucky hit against the goblin's shoulder. Likewise, the goblin's thrust at Phadian, thrown off by his torn shoulder, missed the cleric. The ranger's eyes were drawn immediately to the goblin in the back, who rammed his dagger down at something that tried to squirm away.

Maple screamed as the dagger buried itself in the stone beside her head. Her thrashing managed to free one of her emaciated wrists, and she levered herself against the ground to kick at it. Weakened by starvation and dehydration, the kick failed even to push the goblin away. She froze for a fraction of a second as a cold howl rose from the other rooms and spilled into the hallway.

Erky, surprised by the sudden melee, managed to pull his hammer. Mogue, his ax already drawn, took a step in front of the gnome and surveyed the scene. They were outnumbered, and flanked...

In the to his left, Mata'Alian grunted with the force of his thrust. He missed spectacularly when the goblin ducked under the swing of his mace, and almost threw his own balance.

Ruby, caught between two threats, bit down hard on her lip, kicked off the ground, and tumbled into the room. Her somersault brought her up between the two goblins. Both of them, already stabbing at other target, missed her. One stabbed too far forward and the other swung too low, grazing the small of her back, but failing to slash the leather of her armor.

She sprinted forward, dagger held high, and tried to stab at the goblin. He thrust down with his blade, forcing her to turn on her heel to avoid losing her balance, and missed him. The small creature on the floor yelped again at the goblin grabbed her leg and pinned it down.

Behind her, Korra stabbed at a goblin as it turned to pursue Ruby. The spearhead ripped into its abdomen and pushed it back. The creature snarled up at Mata'Alian, swung at the man's chest, and threw itself off balance. The second creature lunged at Korra and slashed down at her with its short sword. It missed her by several inches, embedding itself in the wall.

In the room in front of her, Maple's scrabbling fingers dug into a fleshy tumor. With a sudden burst of vitriol and righteous rage, she swung her arm up and smashed the gore into the goblin's face. It shrieked, falling back and frantically trying to clear its beady eyes of the filth. Ruby slashed hard at him from behind, slipped in the gore on the floor, and missed.

In the hallway, Erky stepped up behind Mogue and slammed his hammer into the skull of one of the foul goblins. The creature twitched and died. Behind the gnome, Mata'Alian planted his rapier's cage against his chest and swung high around a goblin. The creature ducked forward, trying to escape the mace, impaled himself on the thin blade.

The goblin clutched its chest, coughed pitifully, and slid from the blade. Turning his attention to the next room, he watched Ruby take a swing, and get knocked back by the wild flailing of the goblin. He took a step, swung to his side hard, and speared the creature.

Ruby was sprayed in black blood, stumbled, and looked up. Gasping for air, she smiled and Mata'Alian in a silent thanks, and looked down on the floor.

Her realization was an electric shock. In the melee, she hadn't even noticed who was chained to the floor: Maple. She knew she should have been angry at the rogue...the halfling had abandoned them to the darkness...But her fearful eyes staring up in Ruby's, her emaciated hands reaching vainly for the red-haired half elf's...Ruby could feel nothing but the painful squeeze of her heart in her chest.

She dropped to the ground and began picking the lock that shackled her left hand to the ground, oblivious to the fight unfolding in the hallway.

Erky, seeing one charging from just behind his shoulder, swung down hard on it. The hammer struck the side of the goblin's head, throwing it back half a foot, but failing to drop it. Beside him, Mogue's ax cracked the skull of the goblin stupid enough to charge him.

"What's going on back there?!" The dwarf yelled into the room as he turned to guard it.

Ruby, deaf to their cries, didn't realize Maple was free until the halfling reached up to stroke her red hair. There were tears gathered in her pain-filled eyes, a smile straining her gaunt face, and she whispered again and again and again, "Thank you...thank you..."

The rogue gathered the halfling into her lap and tried not to cry. She weighed nothing in her arms, and she could see the signs of torture...the bruises and burns and slashes...the bloody beds of her fingernails...

Phadian saw the threat before Ruby did...the third goblin in the room raising his dagger and aiming for the rogue's throat. His hand snapped out even before the words were out of his mouth. The goblin seemed confused when his wounds were ripped open by the magic of his inflict minor wounds. It dropped the creature, and Phadian watched it for a moment...its chest rose, and fell, and rose again...

Phadian spun hard on his heel as a goblin went sailing through the air with a howl, spewing blood from its crushed head. Before he could react, another one jumped at him. The bloodlust in the goblin's eyes paralyzed the cleric, and before he could register what was happening, Mata'Alian was clambering through the doorway. He swung his mace, forcing the goblin away, but had to abort a further attempt to avoid striking Phadian.

Mogue danced in the bloodshed behind him, missing three different attacks before he pivoted hard on his heel and cleanly beheaded a goblin.

"Phadian!" Mogue shouted, motioning at him to join them.

The cleric looked back over his shoulder and saw the rogue reach for her flask. For a fraction of a second, he saw something in her eyes...he wasn't sure exactly what it was...perhaps shock...or something deeper...and he picked up his sword, and charged through the doorway.

"Here." Ruby told her, eyeing the fight through the narrow window the door created, "Drink this."

She brought the flask to Maple's lips and tilted it up. The halfling suddenly panicked...all those days and nights of agony and her endless fight not to eat or drink...she thought she could feel herself drowning in the stench of citrus...Frantic tears slid over her thin cheeks, her eyes wide with terror.

Ruby took the flask, brought it to her lips, and drank from it. She waited for a long moment, smiling back softly at the halfling, and told her, "See? It's just water. Only water."

Maple cried as the red-haired rogue lifted her into her lap and offered her the flask again. Desperation clutched as the halfling, and she began gulping the water so fast it gurgled in her chest. Ruby, eyes narrowed, gently pulled it away from her, "Slowly. You'll make yourself sick." Ruby wrapped her arms around the halfling, and listened hard to the battle in the hallway.

Phadian struck at the goblin advancing on him and missed. Korra struck at the creature over the cleric's shoulder, impaling the monstrosity through the chest. Not ten feet from him, two of the goblins surrounded Mogue and struck at the same time. It proved to be a poor idea when the blade of the fist one glanced off the dwarf's armor and into the throat of the one behind him. Mogue, smiling, swung his ax up and through the goblin in front of him.

"Care to give us a hand here?" Korra snapped at Phadian as she slammed the end of her spear into a goblin. The creature stumbled back, and the half-elf cleric spat his sleep spell.

It hardly surprised him when it failed. And, if her thrust to the goblin's neck was any indication, Korra was also aware he was having a rough night. She eased the body down, glanced around, and clapped him hard against the shoulder.

"We all have those days." She told him.

"Clerics!" Ruby's voice annoyed, but had an undercurrent of...fear. "Would you please get in here?!"

Erky stepped in first and cast a spell that sent a cold chill down Phadian's spine: Death Watch.

"What are you doing?" He finally asked, "You know that is a dark spell!"

"What are you two talking about?" Korra asked, planting her hand on her hip.

"Death Watch. It's a spell that allows a cleric to see the shade of death approaching any individual in eyeshot. It is also evil in nature." Phadian told her, his eyes never leaving the gnome.

"And yet Holy Ehlonna grants it to me when I seek her blessing every morning." Erky told him.

"Do you two care to fight about this later?" Ruby hissed up at them.

"She needs food and rest. Otherwise, there is nothing I can do for her." Erky told the rogue.

Something deep in Ruby rebelled...How could he say that when Maple lay bleeding in her arms?

Phadian, apparently deciding to drop the argument, put his bag on the ground and dug out a small cake. He broke off a small corner and offered it to Maple. The halfling peered back at him suspiciously for a long moment before reaching out tentatively and taking it. It disappeared in two great bites, and she begged for more.

"Not yet. We'll need to build you back up to anything larger." He said, smiling as best he could.

He stood up, and his eyes fell on an orange that suddenly bleached white and dissolved into a writhing mass of maggots and worms. Mata'Alian must have seen it, too, because the cleric could feel him bristle beside him.

"Maple..." He trailed off, "Did you eat or drink anything?"

The halfling shook her head violently, moaning, "No...No...I didn't, I promise...No!"

"Why are you even here?" Ruby finally asked her, "We thought you abandoned us."

"I did..." Maple replied, "I just...couldn't do it after Mata'Alian died. I thought that...I don't know...I felt like Death was too close. I ran, but I took only my fair share of the finds. I promise! I must have been two days in when I woke up and realized that I couldn't leave...I couldn't leave _you _to die..."

Her eyes burrowed deep in Ruby's, so soft and sincere that it was all the red-haired half-elf could do not to look away and cry.

"So I came back. But you were already gone. I don't even know how many days it was before they found me. I tried to hide, but one of them heard me. They took me back here, stripped away my armor and my gear. They hurt me...tried to make me eat those oranges and drink the juice...But I wouldn't! I couldn't..." She continued, desperation straining her already exhausted voice.

"We should decide what we're going to do." Mogue finally said.

"I'm out of spells." Erky replied, "I don't think we should chance moving."

"I have to agree." Ruby finally said.

"I disagree. She was _tortured _in this room." Phadian said, "We can't expect her to spend another night here. And we already know that the room at the end of the tunnel can be fortified."

Ruby chewed at her bottom lip. If they moved, she would be forced back into the front lines...she wasn't sure, she realized, if she trusted anyone to care for Maple...

"Will you carry her?" She finally asked Phadian.

"Of course." He told her.

Reluctantly, she handed the starved halfling over to the cleric, listened to him chant a spell, and watched some _life _return to Maple's eyes. And then she turned her back and started walking.

It was almost an hour before they fell back to the room with the once-rusted iron statue. No one knew what time it was, but exhaustion suggested it was wearing late into the evening. Ruby offered to take first, and started walking around the room.

Before Phadian went to sleep, Mogue approached him and lightly touched the mace to the cleric's chest. Korra, watching from across the small room, saw a number of small wounds close...and

for the first time that day, wondered something...She had seen Mogue heal himself, and others...

"Could you heal Maple?" She asked her armor silently, looking down at the gleaming silver rings.

"She looks fine to me." It responded with a kind of cold indifference that faintly nauseated her.

"What about Mogue?"

"Not while he holds the mace."

"Because you can't?" She asked.

"Because I won't." It told her.

Something tickled at the back of her mind, but...she was just so tired...And it was so much easier to close her eyes than ask more questions...

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

_**Chapter Fourteen: Divine Intervention **_

_**Disclaimer: I do NOT own D and D, but the characters within are intellectual property. **_

It was well into the third shift when Phadian heard something...sniffing around Maple. He turned, but there was nothing...and then a shuffle near Mogue's sleeping form...He caught a glimpse of a dog nuzzle Korra and vanish in a shimmering wave. He waited for a long moment, holding his breath, to see what would happen. When nothing did, he walked over to the sleeping halfling and found a set of prints in the dust. Erky nodded beside him as another sniffed at Ruby and disappeared.

They waited for a long time, but nothing more happened. Shrugging to ease the tension in his shoulders, Phadian stood up and started building up a fire and began processing the remainder of the meat they had.

He explained what they had seen on his shift, and Korra was quick to question if they needed to move on.

"I've heard of things like this. It's my understanding they're usually benevolent." Ruby told them as she took a sip of the stew.

"Can we really risk it?" Korra asked.

"Do you have a better idea? I doubt walls are going to stop them." Ruby replied.

The ranger shrugged at her.

"We've been away longer than we thought we would be." Phadian said finally, "We should go back and check on the children."

"I'll go with." Ruby told him, grabbing her bag.

Mata'Alian grunted something in response; children were one of very few soft spots his heart managed to keep.

"Look out for her." Ruby whispered to Mogue as she stood up, her eyes flickering over to Maple.

The dwarf nodded at her, opened the door for them, and closed it behind him.

* * *

He should have smelled it before anything else...danger, and fear, had a very particular odor that was not easily forgotten. But nothing alerted him to the hulking figure in the shadows until a javelin went sailing between Ruby's shoulder and her neck and something uttered the guttural command: "Grip, Fang: Hunt."

The creature took a step into the light as its hand dropped two leashes. Two rats scurried into the darkness and it smirked at them eerily...another Bugbear...

Ruby pulled her shortsword from her belt in the same motion that Mata'Alian used to charge. He came down hard on the creature, spearing it with its rapier. Phadian, trying to avert another fight, attempted to cast sleep. The Bugbear stumbled under the weight of the spell, but failed to go down.

Mata'Alian turned hard on his heel, swinging at it low with his mace. He missed when the creature took a step back and slammed the head of its morningstar into his shoulder. Seeing an opening, Ruby stepped forward and curled into a ball. Her form, however, was bad. She came up short, and the creature clipped her shoulder with a forward swing. She barely managed to stay on her feet, and stabbed back in retaliation. The blade sank deep into its leg, and it shrieked in pain as it stumbled back.

Phadian felt a flash of anger as he watched it strike Mata'Alian, bringing him to the ground. He charged forward with a cry that was cut off as something sprang from the darkness. The rat came down hard on him, sinking its teeth into his shoulder.

To his left, Ruby heard the scuttle behind her and dropped to a knee. The rat sailed over her head, managed to find its feet, and reeled around to face her with a hiss. She bounced back onto her feet, took a step behind the Bugbear at her right and tried to stab. She missed, tripping over herself when it moved suddenly.

Phadian managed to brace his elbow against the ground and twist, throwing the creature off of himself. He scrambled up, sprinted to Mata'Alian and started casting when an eerie shiver worked its way up his spine. He stopped, turned his head over his shoulder, and saw the gleaming incisors of a rat smiling back at him.

He started to rise, reaching for his sword, when he heard something: from above him came a shrieking cry that was cut off with the snap of bone and tear of flesh as a goblin landed on it. It wielded a sharpened stick, clutched in its twitching hand...

Phadian pushed back nausea, swallowing hard against the bitter bile in the back of his throat. He turned his head away from the gore and watched Ruby attempt a stab. She missed when she was forced to abort the attempt and roll underneath the lunge of the remaining rat. The bugbear tried to pin her with the head of its morningstar, but failed.

Turning back to Mata'Alian, Phadian began chanting the spell. After the first attempt, the man stumbled to his feet and reached for his weapons.

"Stop!" Phadian growled, grabbing him by the arm and chanting the spell again.

Ruby came back up on her feet, glimpsed Mata'Alian and Phadian struggling near the back of the cave, and stood up.

"If you're looking for a fight, come and get me!" She shouted, trying to buy them precious seconds.

"Now go!" Phadian shouted at the man as he released his arm and grabbed his sword.

He charged the bugbear and was shoved back by a brutal blow to the shoulder. From the shadows, the rat jumped from the darkness at the red-haired rogue. Ruby stepped around it, turning on her heel.

The air blurred in front of her and the ground exploded in a tidal wave of blood. Liquified organs and shards of bone sprayed across her face and chest. For a fraction of a second, she was frozen with something torn between horror and shock...it was an elder goblin...

Phadian shouted something up into the pit, a plea of desperation that they _stop_. He heard an eerie laugh drift back down from the darkness: "Don't worry. You're next, little rat." It was Orcish...

Shaken from her stupor, Ruby gripped her short sword. Mata'Alian rolled in behind the bugbear, getting grazed across his shoulder. He lifted his rapier, driving it deep. Beside him, the rogue somersaulted in and drove her blade deep into the creature's neck. It dropped with a gurgling cry, spilling blood and froth on the ground.

Phadian saw something move in the shadows, lifted his sword, but failed to swing in time to hit the rat. It sprang up at Ruby with a snarl. The rogue side-stepped it, grabbed it by the scruff of its neck, pulled its head back, and cut its throat.

She was starting to ease the body down when she felt an icy chill race down her spine. On instinct more than evidence, she rolled to the side and came up in time to see another goblin shatter against the ground.

She locked eyes with Phadian as a laughing growl echoed down the tunnel.

"Go." He told her, "I'll bring help."

She nodded, grabbed the rope, and started to climb. Maybe it was shock or panic, but she missed her fifth handhold. The landing winded her more than hurt her, but somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach, she could feel panic starting to boil up. She stood up, stared into the pit, and swallowed hard.

She gripped the rope, took a deep breath, and started again. She was up about forty feet when she felt a jolt on the rope. She knew Mata'Alian was not far behind and that thought gave her some amount of courage.

She had just started into the sixty foot mark when she heard something. She didn't understand what they were saying, but the voice carried the ring of malice and cruelty. She took a shuddering breath, reached for the rope, and slipped.

Gravity pulled her down, and for the span of a breath, she was sure she was going to die down in the darkness. On reflex, her hand shot out, finding purchase on one of the vines. The brutal yank of her own weight jolting the branch almost dislocated her shoulder, but she managed to twist her body up, grab the rope, and keep going.

She scrambled up the rope and over the lip of the pit and as she stood up, realized she had no chance of winning this fight. To her left was an Orc holding an elderly goblin over the edge of the abyssal drop. There were two to her far right in the back. One was ushering the children into neat lines, the other holding a Dwarven girl by her hair...his blade was pressed into her throat. In front of her, another one stood. His arms were folded over his barrel-shaped chest, and he was chuckling darkly.

Ruby threw her short sword down, held up her hands, and told them—breath hitching in her chest—"If you're looking for a hostage, I'm a lot more valuable than they are!"

The creature to her right threw the elderly goblin down, and its screams echoed up from the pit. She heard something like flesh striking flesh, saw the rope by her feet jolt, and heard Mata'Alian curse. Ruby fought back tears of rage as the same one grabbed her arm, hard, and yanked her close. The first blow with the pommel of his sword to the base of her neck dropped her to her knees.

There was only a fraction of an instant to be scared...to contemplate what would happen to her if she was dragged off into the dark...She knew she would be raped, forced to carry one of those foul creatures...But fighting was futile. If she had been alone, she would have chanced it, outnumbered as she was...but the children...

The pommel came down on her head again. Her vision began to shimmer, the world growing hazier and hazier until a final blow plunged her into the darkness. In the distance, she thought she heard a scream...

The Orc saw something scramble up from the darkness a moment later and fling itself at him. He reflexively dropped Ruby and swung his blade around to sneer at the man. Mata'Alian met his gaze steadily, taking a defensive stand over the rogue and raising his weapons.

* * *

Phadian pounded against the door with strength he didn't know he still had. And Mogue opened it with speed that belied his stockiness.

"Hurry!" The cleric gasped, "Something's up there!"

"Shit!" Korra grabbed her spear and raced through the door, shouting at Erky to stay with the downed halfling.

Mogue ran out behind her, forcing the door closed with a shove of his back against it.

"What is it?" Korra asked as they sprinted down the hall.

"I don't know, but it's murdering the elders. I don't doubt that children are next."

The ranger lunged at the rope, missing it in her haste. She cursed under her breath, turned, gripped a knot, and started pulling herself up. Phadian was not far behind. The dwarf, however, waited. If something should happen...it made the most sense for him to wait a minute, and then follow.

It was probably less than a minute later that the line went slack. He gripped it, and started climbing.

* * *

Korra almost stumbled over the body of a dead Orc as she pulled herself out of the pit. Its skull was a shattered mess of bone and bleeding brain tissue. Laid out prone beside it was Mata'Alian, bleeding from a nasty wound just under his ribcage.

Her eyes flickered up to an Orc in the back, herding the children towards the open door. In front of it was another one...carrying Ruby...Distracted by the raging hiss in her ears, she failed to see the one to her right. It, however, saw her. Before she could stop it, it gave a yell.

The one in front of them dropped Ruby to the floor. She didn't move. The one in the back grabbed a child by her hair, and hauled her up towards his blade...

"You fucking bastards!" Korra screamed, thrusting the tip of her spear forward.

She missed when it parlayed the tip of it down and away. Behind her, Phadian stepped to the side and started casting a sleep spell on the Orc with the Dwarven hostage. Whether it was the battle around him or the high resistance of the creature, he wasn't sure, but it failed.

"I'll get him!" Korra told him in Elvish, turning to cast her magic missile. She was well into the last line when she felt a blade sink into her shoulder. She dropped to her knee, losing the spell just as Phadian slashed down at the creature. Another slashed at her, missed and tripped. It dropped its sword, caught itself, and snarled.

* * *

Mogue cursed himself as he slipped for the second time. He estimated he fell about fifteen feet before finding a vine with his clutching hands that would hold him. His shoulders ached, but urgency pressed him on. As he hauled himself over the edge and onto stone, he realized how dire the situation was.

His eyes fell on the tear-filled gaze of the girl staring back at him in desperation. He scrabbled over the dead Orc on the ground with a battle-cry that chilled the air around him. The girl screamed pitifully as the blade sank into her throat. Her blood misted into the air.

Mogue's vision went red. Oblivious to the Orc to his right grabbing for its sword, he charged the monster in front of him. His ax hit home, severing the monster's spine. It fell forward with a shocked gurgle, spewing blood. He caught the girl, pressed his ear to her chest and felt his knees go weak with relief. She was breathing, and her pulse, weak and slow, could be felt.

He pressed the mace to her chest and sighed with relief as the gash across her throat sealed. A single tear rolled down her face, and her lips blushed red again.

Korra spun on the one behind her, trying to slam the edge of the spear against its chin. By stupid luck, he was reaching for his sword, and she missed, sailing over his head. Behind her, Phadian dropped to his knees, pressed his hands to Mata'Alian's chest, and started to cast. The wounds beneath his palms closed and he started to rise just as Mata'Alian did.

Korra, charged by the remaining two, tumbling between them. They both struck out reactively, and both missed. She turned, took a step back, and smirked. Distracted, they didn't see Phadian jump to his feet. The blade of his sword slashed across one's back. It snarled, spun around and tried to strike the cleric back. By then, Phadian had already side stepped, and the Orc missed him.

In front of them, Mogue darted around the melee. Kneeling beside Ruby, he did a cursory check. She was bleeding from a small tear in her scalp, but appeared to be unharmed.

Behind him, an Orc raised his sword to cut down Phadian. It was a fatal move: Korra struck hard under the armor, piercing it through the hollow of its neck. As it dropped, Phadian ducked under it and came up beneath the other one. Its head was separated from its body before it had a chance to react.

Sheathing his sword, he ran over to the down rogue. Holding her against his chest, he ascertained she had been subdued, but otherwise spared. He didn't allow himself to the think of the implications that had...what they were going to do to her...

Mogue walked over, pressing the mace to her chest. The rogue's teal eyes snapped open and she grabbed Phadian by his shirt, "What happened? Where are the kids?" Her eyes fell on the blood dripping down his armor...What if...

"They're fine. Afraid, but fine." Mogue told her.

The rogue relaxed in the cleric's arms for a fraction of a second before she pushed herself onto her feet.

"We can't leave them here again." She sighed.

Their options were limited. Leaving now for a village would be just as dangerous as staying. They were almost two weeks' time into the sundered citadel. Traveling now would take them through the remainder of the goblins' territory—with all of its traps and dark secrets—and well into the kobold stronghold. And once they reached the surface, they would still have to brave several days travel through the eerie forests...

"And leaving isn't an option." Phadian replied.

"I don't know how many I'll be able to carry down." Ruby told him. Taking it slowly, carefully, would have strained her without her injuries. She could carry only one at a time, and estimated she would only be able to make four or five trips...

"I won't be able to help." Mata'Alian told them honestly.

"I have an idea." Mogue told them, eyeing the iron chest that had been the goblin king's footrest, "We can bind it with rope and use it to lower them down. I think it'll hold three at a time."

"Let's get him down, first." Ruby said, pulling up the rope as she glanced at the man.

They tied the rope around his waist and lowered him down. When she felt the rope go slack again, Ruby followed him down.

Korra, watching as the rogue eased herself into the darkness, finally had time to think. Ceilidh had told her once before she would protect her...

"Are you the reason they're not hitting me?" She asked herself silently.

"Of course." The armor told her.

"Can you heal me if they hit me?"

"Yes."

"And the others?"

"I can only help those who wear me." Ceilidh responded.

Korra felt the ache of older wounds and asked, "Could you heal me now?"

"Why waste the spell?"

The ranger bit back her frustration, "Can you at least help me down the rope?"

"I can make you more nimble." It told her.

Korra settled for that much.

* * *

Ruby helped ease the iron chest down, using her fingertips to stabilize it. The kids inside said nothing, just stared up at her with wide, terrified eyes and pale, trembling lips. She lifted them out one at a time, trying to smile as she passed them to Mata'Alian. Despite his exhaustion and injuries, he managed to put on a good show for them.

She felt bone-weary at the end of it. She wasn't sure how many hours had passed, but it felt like the night was already beginning to wear on...Between the five of them, it took almost forty five minutes to get them all back to the safe room.

Mata'Alian began going through his bag when he realized how little food they had. He wouldn't be able to feed even the core group, let alone the children...

"I need those two rats." He finally said.

"The rats...? For...?" Korra trailed off.

Ruby elbowed her, nodded, and yanked her into the hallway. It took them perhaps forty five minutes to drag both of them back. They laid them out and Mata'Alian told them apologetically that he would need their help skinning them.

He pointed out where to start the cuts and how to pull the flesh back. He told them to discard the brain and to cook down the organs. The meat from the second one he had them cut into thin wide strips. They laid them out near the edges of the fire to dry. He noted that Maple was taking food more easily; they had to remind her occasionally to slow down, but for the most part, she could handle herself again.

He was already fast asleep when Ruby volunteered for first watch. She was exhausted, but staying up a bit longer was easier than sleeping for four hours and trying to be alert afterward. Phadian offered to stay up with her.

Mogue agreed to a midshift to give Mata'Alian more time to rest. Korra, for obvious reason, took the final shift with him.

It was near the middle of Mogue's shift that things began to grow uncertain. He heard it at first; a light sniffing coming from Erky's pallet. When he turned around, he saw a huge black dog gently nosing the injured Dwarven girl. It licked her hand and vanished only to reappear next to Korra. Another, in the shape of a black Labrador, was sitting next to Mata'Alian.

Sitting down, he filed through his bag and pulled out a piece of jerky. He offered it to the nearest creature, who, to his comical surprise, spoke at him: "Thank you, but I think we'll pass."

"I'm not real fond of the mystery meat myself." Mogue responded with a chuckle.

"Why did you save those children?" The dog asked him with a cock of its head.

"Because it was the right thing to do."

"Even down here?"

"Even down here...Whatever it is that _is _down here."

"The riddle is easy. Haven't you figured it out?" The dog asked him, taking a seat and resting its head on its front paws.

"We want to solve it." The dwarf replied.

"We come here often. We can't stop the evil growing here...thanks to _him_. But thank you for getting rid of the goblins."

For a moment they were silent before the creature made an offer.

"We could take them." He told Mogue.

"The children? Where would you take them?"

"Far away." The dog told him.

"Home?"

"We do not know where home is, but we could save them from this place."

"When we're done, will you take us to them?" Mogue asked.

"We could try." The dog told him, its eyes wandering over the group, "We've been watching you for the last week. And though we trust you, this hole stinks..."

"Where would you take them?"

"There is a settlement 300 miles west of here."

Mogue gripped his mace, stared at it, and asked it silently, "Can I trust them?"

"Yes," It told him, "They will take care of them."

Mogue looked back at the dogs, and nodded.

The lab rose onto its haunches and said something in a language Mogue couldn't understand. Behind it, a giant specimen, like a Mastiff, gently cupped a child by her cloak and disappeared into the shadows.

One by one, they were taken. The dogs were so gentle the children didn't even stir in their slumber. In the end, it was just him and the Labrador staring at each other. It dropped a chain of sausage links at his feet. Behind him, the Mastiff offered up a hare.

The dog looked at him and told, "We said we would try to come back for you and we will try. Good luck."

And, like that, they had vanished...

He sat down, weary, and realized it was time to wake the last watch. He started with Korra, who rose sleepily, rubbing her eyes, and looked around. In the same motion, she snatched him up by his collar and hissed, "Where are the kids?!"

"Safe." He told her.

"Safe where?!"

"Away. The dogs took them."

In the back of her mind, she heard her armor hiss, "He's lying. He killed the children and dragged them out into the hall."

Korra's eyes darted to the floor, to the sausages and the hare...

"Then where," She asked, "Did those come from?"

Korra instantly knew the armor was lying. She dropped the dwarf, took a seat in a nearby corner, and told the armor she was done listening to it. The armor, however, was not done talking to her...

It whispered at her all night, telling her its story. She had been a fighter, one of the Sisters of Calcrix. She also told Korra that she had volunteered to be imbued into the armor.

"Why?" Korra asked against her better judgment.

"I had no choice. The Driders came up _under_ us. I didn't even know it was there until it bit me...the poison was like fire...My brother cut it down, and came to me. He told me he couldn't save my body, but...if I was so inclined, he could save my soul."

Its voice suddenly turned bitter, "Calcrix should never have died and now a god, _our god_, is dead. Only when we can revive him can we get the first piece to resurrect Calcrix."

"How do you revive him?" Korra asked.

"Set him free." Ceilidh told the ranger.

"So who is Kekavellium?"

The armor spat back her answer: "He led Belak here! He led the war against my brother! I _need _you to kill him because if he is allowed to live, he will _always _find a way to stop us!"

"What is Calcrix?" Korra asked.

"Life!" The armor cried back, "He gives and sustains and allows death."

The ranger's gold-green eyes narrowed, "Allows, or does?"

"Allows. He only killed one thing...Us."

"Why?"

"We wouldn't fight for him when the Druids came."

"So he allowed that." Korra retorted.

"Ehlonna has no control over him, or him. They follow because they _choose _to." It replied. Korra knew it was talking about Erky and Phadian.

"I need more answers if you want me to help you." Korra told her.

"Then listen to me!" The armor cried back pitifully, "You never listen to me!"

"Watch out for that mace. I will kill Jukperellium...or we will never see Calcrix again!"

"I listened to you, now you're going to help me." Korra responded, "We need food."

"Well, the rat is riddled with parasites. The mushrooms, however, are edible."

Korra told her she understood; but deep in the back of her mind, she felt something building...some kind of resistance.

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

_**Chapter Fifteen: Of Bridges Being Built and Burned**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own D and D, but the characters within are intellectual property!**_

Ruby stood up and brushed herself off, stretched, and told them she was going for a walk.

"A walk?" Korra asked incredulously, "Do I have to remind you what happens when we go for walks?"

"Look," The rogue told her irritably, "I have some things I need to get done."

"Well, tell me and I'll come help you!" The ranger told her.

"I'm going to go bury the goblins." The red-haired female told her.

"The goblins?" Mata'Alian was bemused at best.

"Whether they meant it to or not, their deaths did aid us." The half-elf replied.

Korra nodded, shrugging, and standing up. "She does have a point..."

The rogue smiled at her, picked up her weapons, and started walking. Korra grabbed her staff, waved at the others, and followed after her.

* * *

"Well that was...uh...unexpected?" Korra trailed off as she folded her arms over her chest.

In front of them was a giant tortoise that was happily munching on the corpses of the goblins. It was massive, easily ten feet across the carapace, and oddly adapted. It was pale with dark speckling and its claws were curved like giant meat hooks; its belly was shaped like a shallow dish. Given time, space, and strong enough soil, it was likely able to climb.

"What is it?" Ruby finally asked.

"If I'm right, this species has been considered extinct for hundreds of years." The ranger told her.

"What should we do?" The rogue finally asked.

"Either way, we need those mushrooms." Korra said, motioning with her chin to the glowing mushroom caps.

"Are you serious?" Ruby cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Look at it," Korra replied, "I could outrun it with my hands tied behind my back, blind-folded, and stunned."

"Uh-huh. I'll stay here." The rogue smiled tightly.

Korra laughed low under her breath and crept into the shadows. She worked her way around, gathering the caps in her hand like a bouquet only to turn back and realize the creature was following her. It made no attempt to come after her, but instead sat quietly, crunching on goblin bone, and passively watching the ranger.

"I'm going to touch it." She finally said.

"What?!" Ruby yelled back, "Are you crazy?"

"Yes!" The ranger said, taking a step to the side and reaching out.

The creature snaked its head back, crunched wetly on something, and turned away. Dipping its head, it took another chunk from one of the corpses, and began to chew.

Korra shrugged, walked back to Ruby and said, "You know...there's a lot of meat on that..."

"I am not going to be responsible for the genocide of a species." The rogue told her with a look of faintly concealed horror.

"But if it's the last of species, we could be sparing it hundreds of lonely years."

"Aren't you supposed to care about nature?"

"I care more about starving down here."

"I'm going back." Ruby told her simply, turning away from her.

* * *

"You should have seen it!" Korra declared with a giggle as she bounced into the room, "It was huge!"

"What was?" Phadian asked.

"This freaky turtle! It was awesome!" Korra smiled, pumping her fist like an excited child, "I wanted to bring it back, but Ruby wouldn't let me."

"Pardon me if I have qualms about consuming the last known individual of a species." Ruby replied.

"Well, we could use the meat..." Mata'Alian began.

"We have plenty." Ruby cut him off.

"We do for now. But we don't know how long we're going to be down here." He replied reasonably.

"Again, and for the last time, I want no part of this." Ruby replied.

"We did bring back a good haul of mushrooms." Korra said as she began pulling them out of her bag.

"So what do I do with these?" She silently asked her armor.

"Well, first of all, those pods are poisonous." It replied.

"Good to know...What else?"

"You need to cook off the juices. You can boil them, but they aren't as flavorful that way. I recommend sauteing them and draining off the juice."

"Good deal!" Korra smiled, rubbing her hands together, "Mata'Alian, let's get cooking!"

In the back of the room, Phadian quietly laughed and asked, "Are you sure we should trust her cooking?"

Ruby smirked back, "I don't doubt that there's something wrong with her armor, but I don't think it would kill her. It needs her."

The rogue turned to him and offered him something. He held out his hand and felt her drop three small orbs into his hand. When he looked, he saw two sapphires and a diamond shining up at him in the meager light.

"I don't believe that either way, I will survive this place."

"What would you have me do?" He asked.

"When I die, take care of them. They are all I have."

"You're not alone." He told her, closing his hand over hers, "You have me. I won't let you fall here if it is in my power. I am your friend, however much you dislike me. You can count on me."

Ruby forced a smile. He had been the only one she knew she could rely on. He was the only one who she knew would keep his word, if for no other reason than his profession.

"That's why I'm trusting you to take care of them if I can't."

He smiled at her, opened a pouch on his belt, and slipped the gems inside.

Ruby walked away without saying anything further and approached Korra. Pressing her hand into the flesh of the ranger's shoulder, she asked what she thought their next move should be.

"The way I see it," Korra replied, flipping the mushrooms in the skillet, "There's really only one way we could go. Back to where we found Maple."

"Are we sure that's a good idea?" Mogue asked, sharpening the edge of his ax.

"She has a point. The cathedral above us is a terminal room; there's nothing after it. And we know that the path down here only leads one way." Ruby responded.

"Do we want to subject her to that?" Phadian asked, letting his gaze drift over to the halfling.

"Do we have a choice?" Mata'Alian asked.

* * *

"I'm not going in there." Maple said, crossing her arms over her chest as she eyed the door.

"Would you prefer to stay out here by yourself?" Ruby asked coldly as she inspected the floor.

Maple glared at the red-haired rogue with a look of pure contempt that Ruby was happy to return. Whatever sympathy she had had for the halfling seemed to have evaporated as quickly as it had appeared.

"We won't let anything else happen to you." Phadian told her, squeezing her shoulder.

He prayed it wouldn't be a lie in the end...

With a long sigh, the rogue in front of him pushed open the door and moved to take a step. Whether her eyes or her patience had failed her, Maple wasn't sure, but she saw a thin silver line gleam in the dark. She yanked Ruby back by her belt, smirking at her as she pointed it out.

"Then I'm happy to let you take care of it," Ruby responded dryly.

Maple smiled at her with a kind of cold satisfaction as she stepped inside. Slipping two pins into the holes on either side of the wall, she tied off the line in the middle, and cut the thread. Pushing the line aside, she welcomed the in.

"That attitude was a bit uncalled for." Phadian whispered to Ruby with a nudge of his elbow.

"Do we have the option of coddling each other?" Ruby snapped back.

"I'm not asking for anyone to be coddled, but we could do away with unnecessary cruelty." He replied.

"I don't have time to deal with you right now, cleric." She told him venomously.

"Alright, I'm about to put you two in a corner and make you hold hands." Korra smiled as she forced her way between them.

"I think I'd like to see you try." Ruby told her with poorly veiled vitriol.

Korra opened her mouth to say something when the rogue glanced over the ranger's shoulder and snapped, "And what are you staring at, gnome?"

Erky started as if surprised and his gaze fell from Korra, "Well, pardon me if it's a bit hard to stare your own death in the face."

"Wait, what?" Phadian turned to him, a steely look in his eyes, "What are you talking about?"

"That girl is going to kill me. I've seen her in my visions...the last thing I will ever see." He told them.

"It's about time you told us what your deal is." Ruby hissed.

"I am here as an envoy of the will of Holy Ehlonna. Where she sends me, I go." Erky said.

"Why do I get the feeling that you're not giving us the whole story?" The red-haired rogue asked.

"What do you want to know, rogue?" He asked.

"Who the hell you are, and why you're down here." Ruby snapped.

"I am Erky, cleric of Ehlonna and her instrument of divine intervention." He smiled.

Ruby folded her arms, sighed, and told them briskly, "I'm going for a walk."

She stepped back out into the main hallway before it bridged into the six different rooms that had once comprised the center of the goblins' operations. Leaning against one of the walls, she stared up into the ceiling and though, despite herself, _'Ehlonna, if you care as much as they claim, I hope you help them.' _

Somewhere deep in the back of her mind, Ruby heard something thundering back at her...and felt the bile rise in the back of her throat.

_'I have, child. Why do you speak to me with such hate?' _

Ruby sighed as she tilted her head back against the damp stone, '_I'm surprised you answered, all things considered...' _Like the fact she was technically an agent of evil...

Narrowing her eyes, she added, '_I want to know what's wrong with Korra.' _

_ 'There is nothing wrong with she herself. I will see to it that she's fine.' _

_ 'And what about the armor? And Erky?' _

_ 'Erky will do what has to be done until the mace, armor and staff are gone, or destroyed.' _

_ 'You expect me to trust that? How?' _Ruby felt hate begin to boil up in the pit of her stomach.

_'Faith that we look out for you all.' _Ehlonna told her.

Ruby bit back her sarcasm: Yes, _they, _the almighty Holy Host that pretended to care when they were no better than the demons. At least those creatures had the balls not to pretend they were something they weren't.

'_The last time I checked, the only thing looking out "for" my soul was a demon.' _

She felt Ehlonna bristle and heard the anger in her response, '_Right, a demon looking after the well-being of all.' _

Ehlonna's voice rose to a thunderous cry of righteous anger, '_Don't be stupid, child! You waste your time with that...thing.' _

Ruby bristled back, '_You make it sound like I have a choice!' _

_ 'You always have.' _The voice echoed back with tenderness the rogue hadn't expected.

'_What are you saying?' _The red-haired woman felt hope wash over her.

_'That you limit yourself with fear. Live with my children and grow.' _

She was too stunned to say anything more, and felt the presence of the goddess wash away as quickly as it had rolled in. She caught her breath, long hitched in her throat, and walked back. She pulled Phadian aside and as her hand came down on his shoulder, she realized she was shaking...What if that hadn't been Ehlonna at all?

"How do you tell a god from something else?" She asked.

He opened his mouth, closed his lips and then thought hard about it. Trying to explain it to someone who had never experienced it was...difficult...

"In the presence of a god, you feel...awed...first. Like watching a particularly beautiful sunset, or like...falling in love. In the presence of something else, you'd feel fear." He replied.

"That...doesn't help." Ruby told him with a long-suffering sigh.

"What are you talking about, then? Did you see something?" He asked.

"No. I heard something."

"Okay. What did you hear?"

"I'm not entirely sure..."

"Then tell me what you experienced." He responded.

"I think...that Ehlonna just spoke to me."

Phadian's joy was evident across his face before he could quell it, "What did she say?"

"A lot." Ruby responded cryptically before walking away.

"Because, of course," He whispered under his breath sarcastically, "I have the miraculous ability to help you when you refuse to help yourself, let alone anyone else!"

* * *

Ruby stepped into the room and took a look around. It was in the shape of an odd cross that was looked over by a giant bass relief of Calcrix that gleamed down from the ceiling. Behind her, Maple noticed the double set of doors that terminated in the end of the bar of the cross. The room had been overrun with pods of the glowing purple fungus that threw off a sickly purple light. They seemed to be worming their way up through the crushed tile that used to decorate the walls.

And suddenly they realized they weren't alone: standing naked in the shadows was a bugbear wielding a scythe and a watering can.

"Shit! Bugbear!" Korra yelled as she hefted her spear.

The creature dropped its watering can with a scream, cowering behind its own arms and yelling, "Bugbear!? Where?!"

Eyeing her party, the ranger shrugged and called back with tight cheer, "Hey, there! What are you doing down here?"

The creature peered back over its hands and dropped them at his side, "I tend the children, you see. I water and care for them."

Her green-gold eyes drifted over the iron pots that sprouted bulbs of various shapes and sizes. She had a good idea of what they were, but she was in no hurry to bring more death to the fallen citadel.

"I'm Korra, and these are my friends. What's your name?" She asked.

The creature thought for a moment before replying, "I don't know. I think I had one, but its been a very long time since I've heard it."

"I'm sorry..." She drifted off sadly. How lonely to have no identity, even in the desolate darkness in the dungeons.

"Why?" It asked with sincere curiosity, "Whatever my old name was, it couldn't have been better than 'Father.'"

"Do you have many children?" Korra asked.

"Hundreds by now, I should imagine." It told her as it stooped to pick up the watering can and continue on his rounds.

"Do you get many visitors down here?" The ranger inquired.

"No."

"How long has it been since you had visitors?" Ruby asked.

"About 89 children ago." It responded.

The red-haired rogue was sure by now that everyone had noticed it was no longer a bugbear...its fur was mossy and dark green, its eyes were dotted with orange against the brilliant green of its irises. Even its talons had a certain earthiness about them.

"Do you know anything about a tree down here?" Korra asked.

"A tree! Of course!" It smiled back radiantly, "Just go through those doors. But if you happen to find it, would you have them send back my children? They went so long ago and I think it's time for them to come home."

"Of course." Korra smiled as she fought back tears. Really, if it was happy with its existence down in the darkness, tending for the blighted trees, what could she say? Deep in her chest, she hoped that perhaps they might be able to free him, but she wondered if it was fair to take his entire world away from him...

"Are those children you're taking care of ready?" Ruby asked.

"Not yet." It told her, "They need more time, and water and love."

Korra nodded at it, and motioned her party on.

Maple inspected the next door and gave the all clear. She opened it and stepped into another room that was lined with hundreds of pots...all of them dead. Whether it had been the former breeding room or whether it was the makeshift cemetery for the ones that failed to grow, it was impossible to tell.

Ruby crept forward behind her to the north door, where she listened. She failed to hear anything, and Maple confirmed that to the best of her abilities, there was nothing there.

"There are two more doors." Mogue told them, peering at the east and west walls. They had been well hidden by the magic of its former keepers, but his Dwarven eyes had seen past that veil.

"I vote we go in order. Any of them might lead us to where we need to go." Phadian said.

"Then onward." Mogue replied.

Ruby and Maple opened the door and sickly violet light poured in. The room, shaped like an orb, was filled with a glowing fungus pods that threw up tiny glowing puffballs and a purple mist. But it didn't just float around them room...there was a clear wall of it that started about eight feet from the door and rose in a smooth, curved wall to the ceiling. And shambling about inside that mist were the remains of three humans...

"Well...damn." Korra sighed.

Behind her, she heard Erky echo the exhalation.

"They're freaking undead. And look at them," Maple cried in irritation, "They don't even know we're here! We can take them out before they ever see us!"

She pulled her sling from her belt, selected a particularly round stone from her pouch, and lined up her first shot. The crack of the rock against the creature's skull echoed back as it moaned and dropped to the floor. It started to rise and she pulled another stone from her pouch and loaded it. Her hands, however, failed her. In the cold, her grip had failed her and the entire sling went flying into the mist.

"Well...shit..." Korra sighed.

The Dwarf rubbed at his temple with one hand and slid his other hand forward into the mist. It was cold, and damp, but it didn't hurt. He had half expected it to be corrosive in nature.

"Let's get this done the old-fashioned way." He said as he hefted the mace and charged forward.

Spurred to action, Phadian and Korra followed close behind. Ruby and Erky, however, stood at the edges to guard the door.

Mogue's mace slammed into the skull of the second one. Korra moved in to spear the second, but tangled herself up in the length of her spear. Phadian tried to strike one, and missed when it stumbled and fell. To his left, Mogue crushed the skull of his as Korra managed to spin on her heel and slam another against the ground.

Ruby's eyes fell on the first one as Mogue turned from it. The bones were starting to tremble, to pull themselves back together, and she saw the shoulders begin to quake as it pushed itself up.

"Watch your back." She called as she reached for her short sword and closed her hand on sheath.

Cursing under her breath, Korra silently asked Ceilidh what it was going to take to kill them. She never even saw Mogue raise his mace and cast the turning spell...Only the blinding flash of light as the mist reflected it back in a searing wave...and the fear clenching her heart tight in her chest and the overwhelming need to _escape. _

She screamed, dropping her spear and racing past Phadian as the cleric darted in the other direction. Behind her, Mogue dropped the mace and charged back through the door.

Erky, caught completely by surprise, was knocked aside by the Dwarf as he pushed past him. Ruby, seeing what was happening, took a step to the side, yelled at Maple to retrieve the weapons, and darted after Korra.

She reached out, snatching the ranger by her shirt and trying to haul her back. The ranger retaliated with a vicious elbow to the chin that split the rogue's lip. Before she could recover, Korra had disappeared into the dart.

Ruby raced down after her, but found only Phadian. Finding her footing, she tackled him and tried to grapple him to the floor, shouting, "Cleric, get a hold of yourself!"

* * *

Maple pulled the spear up and tossed it to Erky even as her hand closed on the mace. She felt something powerful rise up in her and heard a voice echo in her mind, "You are mine!"

She froze, awed and strangely ambivalent as it told her that she needed to find the Dwarf.

"Yes, Master. I will." She told him, finding it surprisingly light in her hands, as she took off down the hall.

* * *

Ruby tripped over an uneven face in the stone floor and fell forward. Thinking fast, she curled her back, tumbled over her shoulder blades, and came up on her feet. She had no way of knowing that not even two hundred feet behind her, Maple had found Mogue.

She leapt forward, her palm coming down on the small of his back and he felt the fear evaporate like morning mist. He stopped, turned to watch her bow and offer the mace back, and closed his fist around it.

The voice told him, "While she's running, sunder the armor!"

* * *

Ruby reached out in front of her, tried to catch Phadian by his robes, and failed to find purchase. It was only then that she realized how far they had run...they were moving towards the room they had found the giant turtle in...Towards the darkness that—eventually—led to light...out of the citadel...

* * *

"Where is she?" Maple cried out at Mata'Alian. The man was hunched over, his hands on his knees, gasping for air. He managed to point down one of the halls, and the halfling started running.

* * *

"For fuck's sake, snap out of it!" Ruby shouted as she jumped at him.

She fisted her hands in his robes and tried to pull him down. In his panic, he twisted and elbowed the smaller rogue off. She landed hard on her back, and he scrambled up and started running towards a giant, flat rock towards the rope that led up into the cathedral.

He scrambled up over it...and it moved. The reptilian head snaked up from the ground, and the turtle's beak closed over his belly and pulled him down. Not even the pain of his muscles been torn, though, clawed through the choking panic. He screamed, desperate not to get away from the turtle, but away from the darkness that seemed to be closing in all around.

In the same moment it threw him down into the dirt, Mogue darted into the room. The mace screamed at him not to attack the turtle, but to use it against Phadian. He could remove the fear before the cleric could recover.

He sprang forward, coming down hard on the Phadian, and tapping the mace to his chest. He saw the fear disappear and unceremoniously yanked the cleric away from the creature.

* * *

"What is going on?!" Ruby gasped as Mata'Alian pointed lamely in the direction towards the room they had originally found the mace.

"Good enough." The rogue breathed as she took off again.

* * *

Korra shoved herself against the door, gasping for air and demanding Ceilidh tell her what happened.

"He turned you!" The armor shrieked back, "Destroy it!"

"How?!" Korra yelled back, her shout echoing in the room.

"Sunder it!" The mithril shirt yelled back before sighing, as if an after thought, "I need someone braver..."

"And who else would have you?" Korra snapped back.

"The ape seems brave." She responded.

"Go ahead and ask him. I guarantee he won't." The ranger smirked coldly.

"Why ask when I can take?" Ceilidh replied reasonably.

"Let me take care of the mace before you make any decisions." Korra said. She was strangely afraid of losing the voice that had become so close and so familiar...

"If it doesn't scare you off first..." Ceilidh told her with thinly veiled disgust.

"I could just leave you here." Korra hissed.

"How? You're greed is what keeps me here."

Korra exhaled hard through her nose, "...Bitch. Where is everyone, anyway? Can you feel them?"

"There's one in the hall." Her voice carried the tone of a nonchalant shrug.

"Which one?" Korra sighed. If it was Mogue, she would be more than willing to just wait until someone else happened along...Or risk the darkness on her own.

"The angry one."

Korra's lips pulled up in a smirk, "Good! Let's go!"

"Yes, let us."

"Now it's an 'us'."

"Until I find someone braver." Ceilidh replied.

"Bitch..." Korra sighed as she forced open the door and met Ruby in the hallway.

"Better now?" The rogue asked, wiping a thin tendril of blood away from her lips.

"Yeah...About that..." Korra trailed off, watching the split in her lip redden with fresh beads of crimson, "I'm sorry."

"No worries." Ruby responded, adding, "Mata'Alian is at the end of this hall."

* * *

It took over an hour and a lot of luck, but eventually most of the group managed to reconvene near the room where they had originally found the mace. Together, they walked back towards the room of the secret doors, past the rather confused bugbear, and stopped just short of the room filled with mist. Erky was found not far from there in a state of almost comical confusion.

"I'm not real eager to do that again." Maple said pointedly

"I'm all for secret doors, then." Ruby said.

Erky nodded in eager response, but said nothing more.

"Maybe we should do this is parties." Phadian suggested.

Ruby turned her head over her shoulder and directed her teal eyes on Mata'Alian. In rolling Draconic, she told him that should Korra and Mogue wind up in the same party, she would prefer he keep an eye on them.

"Or not..." Korra trailed off. "I'm all for sticking together."

Mogue considered that she might be trying to manipulate his sense of group cohesion and decided it ultimately didn't matter. Being together in a group, even one with the same stunning lack of group unity they had, was better than fracturing into smaller, weaker parties.

Ruby selected the west door while Maple decided to start on the second natural door on the north wall. The red-haired half-elf quickly realized her door was not locked, but opened into a very steep, very long staircase...and if this citadel was the same one used by the ancient elf at the monastery, it very well might be rigged with similar traps. Maple's door, also unlocked, opened downward into a long hallway that sloped deeper into the earth.

While the halfling searched the floor, Ruby moved to the eastern secret door. It was locked, and though she picked it easily, she found her curiosity teased more for what she found: it swung open into a long hallway that ended shot up suddenly into a set of incredibly steep stairs.

"What did you find?" Maple asked, bouncing up behind her.

"I'm not sure." Ruby replied honestly.

"Well, we have a few choices, at least." Mogue said.

"Any ideas, Erky?" Phadian asked, his eyes flickering across the multiple options.

The gnome shook his head, "My visions did not afford me that much."

"What could be so valuable that they felt the need to lock this door, conceal it with magic, and then force anyone looking for it up a flight of dark, steep stairs?" Ruby asked reasonably.

"Good point." Phadian admitted.

"Then let's go!" Korra smiled, hefting her spear.

They took their time, moving in pairs up the stairs. Mata'Alian's eyes were poor in the dark, so they had Phadian stand to his left, where the stairs opened up without a rail, and had Mogue in front of him to fend off anything that might spring from the blackness.

At some point, the stairs plateaued out and started to shift down towards the south. It ended in a singular stone door that had seen much better days. Wary, Ruby knelt down beside it and listened. She heard nothing but her own soft breathing, and found no rigging on the door. Motioning the group forward, she opened the door and stepped inside to a room approximately twenty feet by twenty feet. It was built in a sloping curve, which suggested the odd shape to the room was not the result of the crumbling stone above it or the soft soil beneath it.

The books lining the walls by the thousands, however, had been all but destroyed by time and moisture. Most of them, they realized, were books on prayer and the dragons gods. By chance, Phadian stumbled across a book that mentioned Ehlonna in the title. In the remains of an armchair, Korra happened upon two scrolls on magical defense. Their last find came in the form of a giant tome written in Draconic on the lore of Calcrix.

When further search turned up nothing of interest, they went across the room to the next door. Maple initially searched it and realized that though it was locked, it wasn't trapped. Pulling her kit from her bag, she began to tinker at the lock. She thought she heard the faint click of the tumblers rolling into place. When she moved to open the door, though, it failed to swing either way.

"This one's odd. It might be masterwork." She told them, glancing at it again.

"Let me try." Ruby said, kneeling down with a pick in her hands. It took her a few minutes, but the next time it clicked, the door began to swing inward.

As the light filtered into the room, the floor began to _squirm. _It was as if the tiles had come alive. Each of them, the size of a dinner plate, were a different color and engraved with a different dragon doing a different task. They began to dance around each other, like turning puzzle pieces, before stopping without warning. In the center of the room was a magnificent carving of a rearing dragon in marble. It held no tray in its maw or its claws, and its eyes were dark, empty sockets. The base was a brilliant red color, like spreading blood.

Mogue stepped forward and out of the corner of his eyes, saw something shrink back from the light. He motioned to Korra, who nodded with narrowed eyes at it. Behind her, she felt Mata'Alian bristle at the threat.

Ruby, oblivious to the hazard, stepped forward to begin inspecting the statue. She never even saw the shadow begin to drop down on her, or the swing of the mace that saved her. It was the shriek and the sudden chill—the coalesced hate raining down on her—that alerted her at all. She glanced over her shoulder, refusing to let the shock show on her face, and thanked him.

"There's writing here," Phadian said, glancing at the glyphs inscribed in the base of the statue, "But I can't read them."

"I can." Ruby replied, "It says, "Let sorcerer's power illuminate my mind."'

Korra thought for a moment before asking the armor privately, "So what should we do?"

"Illuminate its mind and let it see." Ceilidh replied flatly.

"Thanks..." Korra thought back sarcastically, "Some help you are. How about telling me _how _we do that?"

"Give it eyes."

"Again, _how?_"

"You have the orbs."

Korra's lips split into a smile, "Phadian, let's try those orbs."

"Good idea!" He told her, reaching back into his bag and pulling one out.

They each took a side, pushing one orb into each socket. As soon as they slid into place, they began to glow blue and the dragon statue thundered back in Draconic, "Speak to me."

"Consider yourself spoken to." Ruby replied in the same language.

The orbs suddenly sprang from their sockets. If not for a well-time dive by Korra and a sliding catch by Phadian, both of them would have shattered against the tile floor.

"Or she could just speak the runes..." Mogue's mace chimed back in the deep of his mind.

"I suggest reading the runes back to it." The Dwarf told Ruby.

The rogue shrugged, waited for her friends to put the orbs back in place, and did just that. She had just spoken the last word when the statue erupted in brilliant flame. Ruby sprang back, tumbling across the tile and coming up with her dagger in hand.

"Stop! It's okay!" Phadian yelled, reaching out to her as the flames died back, "It isn't designed to hurt us. It's a charisma spell. Probably the clerics and mages would come here to pray before battle."

Ruby sheathed her dagger but said nothing. With no further options, they walked back down and started at the next secret door. Neither Maple nor Ruby found anything suspicious in the floor or on the walls. But as they advanced, they realized that the fungus had managed to penetrate the stone. Turning the corner, they saw the mist glow back at them.

They followed it for another sixty feet before it ballooned into a massive room more than sixty feet by sixty feet. There were two doors: one was a set of double doors and the other was a singular door set on the diagonal of the room.

"How do you want to do this?" Maple asked.

"Where do you want?" Ruby replied.

"I'll take the single

"Then I've got the double."

They split from each other, Mogue searching the floor between them as Maple began to tinker at her door. Her survey revealed nothing, nor did her attempt to listen at the door. To her left, though, Ruby stood up and shook her head.

"There's something on the other side. It sounds a lot like those demonic trees we've been fighting."

"Let's avoid that." Maple replied as her tinkering finally opened the lock, "After you."

Ruby crept inward and found a single door about ten feet in. It was unlocked, and appeared to be free from rigging. She closed her hand on the door and opened it. It exploded outward in a spray of rock shrapnel that blasted the slight rogue backwards as tons of crumbling stone crashed inward.

"Well, we aren't going that way." Mata'Alian grunted as Ruby picked herself up.

"You think?" Maple shot back.

"That leaves us only one option." Erky shrugged as he turned around and started walking back.

* * *

Ruby cursed under her breath as she tried to pick the lock on the double doors. Maple would occasionally press her ear close and nod when one of the tumblers started to move, but it was slow work.

"Do you think we're getting close?" Phadian asked the gnome.

"Perhaps." Erky said, "My visions have been cloudy of late."

The half-elf cleric nodded back at him. That was both a sign of blessing and a bad omen. The closer they got to evil, the more garbled divine messages would be. That also meant it would be harder to contact Ehlonna if the need arose.

"Got it." Ruby said, standing up as she pushed the door open.

Mogue walked with the two rogues through the next set of double doors and through another. From there it opened into a room that was roughly thirty by forty feet...Or had been. The far end of the room end in an unnatural cavern that sprawled well past even Mogue's eyesight, as if part of the level above it had collapsed inwards on itself. And coming from the darkness was the skittering of hundreds of tree-like roots.

TBC


	16. Chapter 16

_**Chapter Sixteen: The Keepers of the Citadel **_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own D and D, but the characters and plots within are largely intellectual the property of a number of people. **_

"Why don't you scout ahead and come back." Mogue said to Ruby, "I want a better idea of what we're dealing with."

The red-haired woman nodded and crept forward. About twenty feet past the shattered edges of rock that were once the base of the walls, the ground gave way to a thick tangle of thorny weeds. They covered the floor to the ceiling, and were so dense she couldn't see past them. Some patches were eerily lit by the pale light of the glowing lichen filtering through the spiny branches.

She found a dark corner and began to crawl along it. She had to detour along the worst of the patches, and try as she might she couldn't spare her arms or her face from the wrath of the thorns. About twenty feet into them, she could hear someone chanting a spell in a language she didn't recognize. She unsheathed her dagger and cut her way against the wall. Pushing aside a cluster too badly knotted to hack through she found herself under an arch of thorns.

Pulling herself beneath the particularly bad plot, she realized two things: the chanting, and the skittering, had stopped. Before she could right herself, she heard some shout: "Don't stop! Just get her!"

The bushes in front of her came alive with the skittering of the trees and the scrape of thorns against the floor and wall. She screamed in Elvish, a cry for help, as the bushes began to rattle.

Mogue heard her voice echo back, heard the fear in it, and lifted his ax as he charged into the thorny thickets. Ahead of him, Ruby took a wild swing into the bramble. It wasn't until she stumbled from the momentum that she realized the echoing against the rock made it impossible to tell where they were coming from.

The bramble behind her suddenly exploded with motion. She spun hard on her heel only to see Maple smiling up.

"I've got your six!" The halfling told her as she pulled her short sword from her belt.

In the same second, Mata'Alian appeared to her left and pulled her bodily behind him. In the distance, she could hear Korra's scream of rage and the heavy stomp of Mogue's boots against the rock. For the first time, she realized, she felt...like she was part of a group. Like she was safe...

The Dwarf, now that he could see her, also realized what a poor position they were in. As far as he could see, they were in the widest part of the cavern, leaving them open to attack on all sides. To his right, however, was a natural outcropping of rock that would serve to narrow the flow of the enemy tide. And with their backs to a natural stone face, the archers would have some cover.

"Fall back to me!" He shouted, shouldering his shield into place.

Mata'Alian glanced over his shoulder and grunted at the two women behind him, "Go."

"Moving." Maple responded, taking a calculated step backwards to match Ruby's.

Phadian closed in behind them, giving Mata'Alian a buffer until he could drop into middle guard. And just as the cleric of Ehlonna took his place beside Erky, who was finishing the prayer for the Death Watch, they were surrounded by the blighted trees.

Mata'Alian inexplicably grinned at Mogue, nudged him, and commented lightly, "I bet you die first."

"Save the sweet talk for later, guys." Phadian said as he drew his longsword from his belt. One of the infected saplings lunged at it. He cut it down with a blow to its midsection. It retaliated with a swipe of its claws that nearly threw the cleric to the ground.

"Fucking trees!" Korra hissed as she stabbed down with the tip of her spear.

The demonic tree gave a cry, dropping to the ground as thick resin spewed into the air. Another popped up behind it, trying to grab Korra. The ranger bounced back on her heel, the claws grazing her cheek but failing to break the skin.

"There are more." Mata'Alian stated as five more appeared from the thorny bushes and surrounded them.

"Then let's fix that." Mogue responded.

He raised the mace high and brought it down with enough force to splinter the sapling in front of him.

"You two could help us!" Korra shouted over at them with wry humor as she thrust the tip of her spear into the sneering face of one that had started to sneak up on Phadian.

"Women." Mata'Alian sighed.

Phadian smiled despite himself; lifting his sword, he turned on the heel of his boot, slashed down at the creature writhing on the end of Korra's spear, and finished it. To his right, Mogue swung at another, but it darted out of the way.

Behind the line of melee, Ruby crouched to the ground and leveled herself with Maple, "Ready?"

The halfling drew her short sword, nodded at the rogue, and gave her a thumbs up.

Ruby stood up, narrowed her eyes, and waited. Her chance came sooner than she thought it would: As Mogue swung at one, he inadvertently forced another one back. In that same moment, Phadian was pushing another one towards Korra, giving her and Maple a window of about five feet to work with.

She sprang up on her heel, curled her back, and tumbled through the space between the cleric and the fighter. She came up right next to one of the saplings, but it clearly hadn't expected her. It shrieked at her, took a swing at her, and missed when the red-haired woman dove under the clumsy assault. Behind her, Maple somersaulted under the outstretched arm of the sapling and after her friend.

Mata'Alian, seeing them start to advance, tried to give them cover. He swung up with his mace and down with his rapier, but both missed when the saplings jerked away and off to the side of his attack.

Beside him, Phadian was hit by the slash of woody claws against his bicep. It stung, and he saw a small bracelet of blood seep up from his robes, but it wouldn't stop him. He pivoted to face his attacker, and saw two descend on Korra from behind and the side. Before he could call to her, both had sunk their tendrils deep into her back. Mogue tried to reach her, hammering down with the mace, but missing his target.

"I'm fine!" She shouted, finding her feet.

She glanced down at her shirt and thought, "Ceilidh, I could use some help!"

The armor said nothing, but a moment later Korra felt some of her injuries begin to close. Phadian, however, was not impressed. He recognized that spell. It was a cure for light wounds...the armor was holding out on her.

"I can give you some cover." He told the ranger, swinging down with his sword. He missed the sapling charging them, but managed to force it back about seven feet.

Mogue, however, shattered the one stupid enough to come at him. His eyes drifted upwards to wear Ruby and Maple had started to disappear into the blackness, "Where are they going?"

* * *

"We don't know what's going to happen if he finishes that spell." Ruby said, glancing over her shoulder as she ran.

She looked up, and realized that the entire ceiling was shrouded by the huge green-black cloud of the unnatural tree's canopy. It was easily several hundred feet in diameter, and dotted with a nmber of disturbing blossoms.

* * *

Mata'Alian missed both swings thanks to a well-timed attack from behind. Phadian, turning to help it, found himself flanked and took a vicious blow across the face. Beside him, Korra was dropped to her knees by a blow that torn open the flesh of her chest. Phadian knelt down beside her, already chanting the spell, when he saw the bleeding begin to lessen. The armor had healed only the worst of it, apparently holding on to her spells for something else...

"Are you two alright?" Mogue cried back as he brought another one to the ground.

"Fine!" Phadian yelled back as he stood up and thrust the tip of his sword into a sapling. It screamed at him, tried to claw its way off the weapon, and fell writhing in agony to the ground.

* * *

Turning the corner of a destroyed wall, Ruby stopped dead in her tracks and felt her breath hitch in her chest. In front of her were two creatures that had once been elves. The first was standing with his back to her, arms lifted and chanting, in robes that were frayed from use and the vines working their way up from his skin. Beside him was a man wearing badly damaged chainmail, clutching a longbow. Sitting next to the paladin was a massive tree frog. It, too, was unnaturally warped by the presence of the tree. In front of them, chained to the tree, were the blink dogs...Two of them had been drawn deep into the tree already, another was trying to dig its way out as its haunches slowly sank in further. Hovering above them were the mouths and noses of two humanoids. Spiraling up the evil tree were lines of glowing fungal pustules that terminated in the treetop as giant oranges.

Dropping to one knee, the rogue slung her crossbow over her shoulder and into position. She lined up her shot, took it, and felt a rush when the caster shrieked. His knees almost buckled and for a fraction of a second she was sure that she had broken his concentration. And then he reeled around with rage and hate the rogue had only ever seen in one other creature—the demon—and shouted, "I don't have time for this! Kill her!"

The red-haired half-elf saw something flicker out of the corner of her eye, turned her head, and saw a small girl lift her dainty hand, mutter something, and felt two magic bolts strike her in the chest. She heard Maple's cry of alarm as the halfling caught up and was speared through the shoulder by the paladin's arrow.

* * *

Mata'Alian speared one with his rapier, lifted the sapling high, and slammed it to the ground.

"Watch your back, Phadian!" Korra shouted.

The cleric dropped to his knees as the ranger thrust over the top of his head. He heard the dull thud of it piercing the chest of a sapling, and felt the spray of blood against his back. He spun on his knee, lashing out with the sword, and sheared it in half.

"Got this, Mata'Alian?" Mogue asked, "The rogues probably need help."

Mata'Alian smirked at him, shrugged, and responded, "Of course I've got this."

Mogue nodded at him, smiled grimly, and started darting off towards the dark chanting.

TBC


	17. Chapter 17

_**Chapter Seventeen: The Tree of Festering Evil **_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own D and D, but the characters and plots within are the intellectual property of a number of very creative individuals. **_

"Care to actually do something?" Korra asked angrily, her blazing gaze on the gnome.

Erky met her stare, sighed, and went back to watching the auras of those around him.

"Let's just finish up here." Phadian said, brandishing his blade.

* * *

Ruby reached down and scooped Maple up into her arms. Pressing her close to her chest, she whispered, "We need to get out of here. Now." She took a step back, and the movement drew the eyes of the frog. It leapt down at her, croaked something guttural, and clamped down with crushing force on her shoulder.

"Shit!" She yelled, feeling the bone begin to creak in the socket. Thinking quickly, she shifted Maple's weight to her free arm, and swung back with her elbow. She hit the soft hollow of its throat, and it bounced away from her, pawing at its neck. Turning hard on her heel, she started running.

* * *

Mata'Alian speared a tree blight on his rapier and rammed it into the ground. Coming to stand over it, he bellowed his victory, and separated its head from its torso. Erky, seeing the situation begin to turn, charged past him and into the darkness.

"Fucking gnome!" Korra shouted, dropping her spear and pulling her longbow. She shot over Phadian's shoulder, and in her haste, missed.

"Just keep calm!" Phadian yelled back as he killed another. From his left, one swung at him, and struck him across his ribcage.

* * *

Ruby was dropped to the ground by an arrow the pierced her deeply between her shoulder blades. She curled over Maple, protecting the halfling and telling her to run.

"What about you?" Maple demanded.

"Just go!" Ruby shouted, shoving her out of her lap and onto her feet.

The red-haired rogue turned to look over her shoulder and felt a flicker of fear. Already, she could feel the blood seeping from her wounds, realized her vision was beginning to swim...She wondered what the stone would feel like when she went down, when she saw _him_ coming to claim her...

The little girl stepped out again, smiled faintly, and cast another magic missile at her. Ruby felt them strike her stomach, felt herself falling back against the stone, and felt the blackness close in.

* * *

"Where's Ruby?" Mogue asked as Maple sprinted towards him.

"She's down!" The halfling cried back.

"Go get the others!" Mogue told her, adjusting his grip on the mace and running.

He almost tripped over her. Her dark armor and bloodstained hair almost melted into the dark, damp stone. Kneeling beside her, he realized she had begun to hemorrhage. He pressed the mace to her chest, felt the magic surge out of it, and watched her eyes open.

"You look like hell." He told her.

"Save it. We have problems."

"What kind?"

"There's a caster chanting at the tree. I don't recognize the language, but I don't want to find out what's going to happen if he finishes that spell. He's being guarded by a paladin of some kind. They also have the blink dogs. They're being absorbed into the tree." She replied, standing up and pushing her blood-damp hair away from her eyes.

"You should regroup with the others." He said.

He hadn't even finished his sentence when Erky sprinted past him.

"Now the gnome decides to do something..." Ruby's voice dripped with her irritation, "I'm going with you. They'll catch up."

"Same here!" Maple chirped, pulling her sling from her belt and smiling.

The Dwarf sighed, nodded, and charged forward. The frog charged down at him, tried to catch him in its mouth, and was summarily knocked aside by the swing of his mace.

* * *

"How many of these fucking things are there?!" Korra shouted as she thrust forward. It was poorly time and she missed by several feet.

"Hey, look, only one more!" Phadian told her as he struck down on one.

He failed to kill it and it lashed back at it. Its claws tore deep into his arm, and he felt a burning sting he knew shouldn't be there...some kind of poison or venom. He turned to adjust his stance and saw Mata'Alian swing his mace side long and club one treeblight into another. Both shattered against the natural stone to his right.

"Way to go, Mata!" Korra cheered.

Phadian saw the tree blight flicker in from the corner of his eyes, yelled at her, and watched as it dug its woody tendrils into her chest, curl around the bones of her ribcage, and rip down so hard he heard the bone snap.

Korra's scream echoed from the stone and she dropped heavily to the floor. Gritting her teeth, she asked the mithril shirt if it could heal her.

"Temporarily," Cielidh replied, "Be careful."

Korra's scream died to a pained moan as the bone snapped back into place and the bloody tear beneath her arm scabbed over, but failed to close. Forcing herself up on her shaky knees, she took a stumbling step backwards, and buried the tip of her spear into the demonic sapling.

"They should learn that fucking with me is a bad idea..." She gasped, forcing a smile as the creature dropped to the ground.

* * *

Erky slapped his palm against Ruby's chest and for a fraction of a second she was tempted to backhand. Then she felt the wound in her back and the bruising on her chest disappear. She almost thanked him...and then an arrow shot dangerously close past her ear. Two purple darts shot from the darkness, both slamming into her shoulder.

"There's a caster over there. She was a little girl, but not anymore." The rogue told him as she stood up to line up a shot.

She waited for Mogue to hammer the frog aside and clear her window of opportunity before taking a shot at the caster. The bolt flew over his shoulder and sank into the tree with a wet echo.

"I've got you covered!" Maple said, swinging her sling over her head and landing a rock against the side of the paladin's head. She reloaded, shot again, and narrowly missed when he ducked his head and turned his orange-shot eyes on her. It slung its longbow off its shoulder, pulled two arrows from the quiver on its back, and notched both of them.

Maple realized in that instant that he wasn't aiming for her, but she had no time to warn Ruby before both were released and sank deep into Ruby's abdomen. Erky raced up next to Mogue and slammed the head of his hammer against the chest of the frog. He shouted something at the Dwarf and just as quickly withdrew.

Ruby crouched down, pulled the two arrows from her stomach, and stood up to take a shot when she was gripped by a cold hand. She froze, felt the sweat gather on the back of her neck, and heard the whisper in her ear, "Your father needs you to help us." Phraxius' horrible face flashed in her mind's eyes, and panic took her.

It was the flash of fear, the instant of uncertainty, that gave her over to the spell. With sudden, insane clarity she realized she _had _to protect the little girl.

In front of her, Mogue dropped the frog with a blow that crushed its skull and turned to face off with the paladin. Ruby sighted him, decided he was far enough from the fragile child, and swiveled to take aim at Erky. She fired, clipping his shoulder.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Maple hissed up at her.

Ruby's eyes flickered down to the halfling, but she said nothing. She lifted the crossbow again, and Maple flung herself on the half-elf rogue. Ruby reached up, caught the halfling by the back of her cloak, and threw her down over her shoulder. Kicking her aside, she took several calculated steps backwards, and aimed again.

"Ruby!" Maple hissed, finding her feet, dropping a stone into her sling, and taking a shot at her.

The rogue turned her head to the side and the pebble bounced harmlessly off her shoulder.

* * *

"I'm going to help Mogue!" Mata'Alian told the cleric and the ranger.

"We've got this." Korra smiled, "Go!"

She pivoted on her heel, lifted the spear, and pinned one of the creatures through its chest and to the stone. She glanced at Phadian, smirked, and told him, "You should get going, too. I've got your back."

The cleric nodded, lifted his sword, and started advancing. He passed Ruby about sixty feet in, but thought nothing of the fact she didn't make an attempt to communicate with him. He reasoned that she was providing cover fire, never knowing she had been charmed.

Ahead of him, he saw Erky charge the paladin. The former soldier of light notched an arrow, shot at the gnome, dropped the bow, and pulled his sword.

Seeing backup beginning to amass, Mogue glanced down at the mace that was practically vibrating in his hands, "What's wrong?"

"They're evil. Whoever they were before is no more." It bristled back.

The Dwarf picked up his eyes, glanced over at the shadow of the girl tucked behind the wall, and steeled himself. She didn't seem to be casting, and he decided he would spare her as long as he could. Hefting the mace, he bellowed a dwarven battle cry, and charged the paladin. His strength and the weight of the mace combined cracked something, and the caster cried out in agony.

The elf-hybrid shouted something vicious and began to cast. Mogue recognized it and jumped out of the way, but Erky was caught off guard and trapped in the cone of brutally cold air. He was blasted backwards, struck his head hard against the stone, and went limp. Seeing her chance, Ruby tried to pin him with a bolt as he fell, but missed. She reloaded, shot again, and saw the bolt sink into the paladin. Somehow, she knew his name...Sir Bradford...

Out of the corner of his eye, Phadian saw Maple dart from the rubble and spring onto Ruby's back. She was thrown off, tumbled to her feet, came up swinging the sling, and landed a solid shot against the red-haired woman's temple.

"What are you doing?!" He shouted at the halfling.

"She's trying to kill us!" Maple yelled back, dropping a round stone into the sling.

Mata'Alian, racing past them towards the battle, cried back helpfully, "She's shot me, too!"

But that wasn't it, Phadian realized...He had his doubts about the rogue, but she had had ample opportunity to kill them in their sleep. Why hadn't she? His hand balled into a fist. He had a strong suspicion she had been charmed.

Lifting his hand, he shouted the command for sleep in Elvish. The rogue's teal eyes darted over to him, but she said nothing, and didn't drop.

In front of him, Mogue lifted his mace to parry away the sword of the paladin. The sheer weight and force of the soldier's magic skill forced him to his knees, and he heard the soul of the mace groan in pain. The mithril held, though, and he found his foot, and forced the paladin back with a mighty push against his weapon.

Behind him, Erky tried to find his feet, tried to shamble up only to be knocked down when five purple bolts of magic threw him to the ground. Mogue, distracted by the sudden flicker of light in his peripherals, he missed with his swing against the paladin.

In the distance, he heard another set of footsteps as Korra raced up from behind. She stopped parallel to Ruby and asked, "What's the situation?"

The rogue turned, lifted her crossbow, and fired. Korra ducked underneath the shot, shouted, "What the hell are you doing?!" and clutched her weapon.

"Something's wrong with her!" Maple shouted, attempting to catch her in the head with another pebble. It flew over the half-elf harmlessly.

Phadian, torn between helping Ruby and finishing the caster, suddenly realized he didn't have much time to make a choice when Mata'Alian tried to engage the mage. Maybe it was the damp stone, but his mace missed its target by a mile and the momentum of the swing carried him soundly to the ground. He was just picking himself up when something reared up from behind a wall of crumbling rock.

The giant snake flared its hood, hissed, and clamped down on the man's shoulder. Raising its head, it tossed him aside and turned its slitted eyes on Mogue. The momentary distraction proved invaluable: As Ruby's eyes flickered up, Korra dropped her spear and tackled the rogue to the ground.

Phadian glanced up, saw Mogue take another crushing blow against the shaft of the mace, and shouted at Korra, "I trust you've got this handled!" Running into melee, he dropped to his knees beside Erky and began healing him. He saw the female caster turn and run in the same second Mogue took a step back to regroup.

Behind him, Korra straddled Ruby, pinned the rogue's arms beneath her knees, and demanded, "What are you doing?!"

"Protecting the little girl!" Ruby hissed back.

Korra sighed, apologized, drew her fist back, and knocked the red-haired female out cold. Shrugging her bag off her shoulders, she reached for a coil of rope and asked Ceilidh, "What's wrong with her?"

"She's not herself." The shirt responded with the vocal equivalent of a shrug.

"Gee, I couldn't tell!" Korra snapped back as she began measuring out a length of rope to tie Ruby down with.

Not fifty feet in front of her, Mata'Alian found his footing and pulled himself back up in time to see the strike of the paladin's sword miss Mogue's head by inches. To his left, Phadian saw the Druid-like caster turn, stretch out his arm, and begin to chant. He recognized the spell instantly but held his ground. He waited for the spell to conclude, waited for the fire to flare from the man's palm, and dove seamlessly beneath the attack. Coming back up on his feet, he saw the little girl reach out and press herself to the trunk of the preternatural tree.

Erky, rising to his feet, came to stand next to Mogue. Korra, looking up to find her opening, never even saw Ruby's fist until it was too late. She was knocked back in the same motion it took Ruby to get back up. The rogue pulled her short sword and glared down at her friend.

"I don't want to hurt you, Ruby, but I will if I have to!" The ranger told her, pulling her staff from the holster on her back. She let her eyes drift just over the top of her comrade's red hair and saw the twinkle of a stone being loaded into its sling.

Ruby charged her with a feral cry, stabbing down at her. Korra held her ground, waited for Maple to fire, and ducked to the side just in time for the stone to strike the back of Ruby's head. The rogue seemed oblivious to the blow, or the blood trickling down her neck. She slashed at Korra again; the ranger, in mid-thrust with the tip of her staff, was forced to abandon the attempt and roll out of the way. As the rogue turned to engage her again, Maple sprang from the darkness, closed her arms around Ruby's throat, cinched them tight, and brought her down.

"Hurry up!" Maple hissed, climbing off of the rogue.

"Got it!" Korra smirked, dragging the rope close and tying a clumsy series of knots around the woman's wrists and ankles.

"They're going to need help." The halfling said, her worried gaze flitting over to the melee.

"Go. I'll catch up!"

Maple nodded, grabbed her sling, and ran towards them. As she reached them, Mogue landed a punishing blow against the chest of the paladin. To her left, Mata'Alian rolled away from the attack of the giant serpent. Phadian moved to help him, but the Druid turned on him with a nasty spell. The resultant spear of coalesced energy slung around and impaled the cleric through his back and out of the joint of his shoulder. The paladin gave a cry in Elvish, lifted its blade, and sank it deep into Mogue's thigh.

"Keep them busy." Phadian whispered to the dwarf as he started moving off to the side.

Mogue nodded at him, raised his mace, and charged. He saw the gnome beside him grip his hammer and together they charged the paladin. If they could buy Phadian time to get around the tree, he would be out of sight, and out of casting range, of the Druid. He might very well be able to end the tree, and the caster, in one blow.

The paladin attempted to parry Erky's blow away from its chest, and inadvertently turned itself around. Mogue jumped on the opportunity, throwing himself into the back of the paladin and knocking him down. He raised his mace high and began to hammer down on it mercilessly. At some point, it stopped trying to protect itself and he reasoned his energy was better spent somewhere else. Looking up, he saw Mata'Alian bash the head of the snake away. If he had been the kind to tease, he would have been tempted to ask Mata'Alian who exactly had the highest kill count now...

Phadian, almost around the tree, was suddenly knocked flat by the force of a barrage of magic missiles. He tried to rise, found he couldn't, and realized that he felt...strangely warm and wet...His hand came away from his armor drenched in red. He must have cried out, he thought, before he lost consciousness.

Mogue, hearing the pained cry, ran for him. The snake lashed out at him in a silver flash of teeth, only to be knocked aside by his swing. It landed, stunned, on the ground, and Mata'Alian jumped on top of it and speared it through the skull. Darting over the dead serpent, Maple dove into the low bushes surrounding the tree and started moving around it. She passed Mogue just as he knelt down and pressed the mace to Phadian's chest.

"We're in a bad spot," The dwarf began, opening his mouth to say more when he was blasted back by an orb of fire. He scrambled up, rubbing soot away from his eyes, and laid eyes on the female caster. She finished a line in a language he didn't understand, and he felt an odd chill come over him, and pass.

"She's good. Her charm spells are powerful." Phadian said as he rose.

"Not good enough." Mogue responded with a faint smile, "She failed her attempts on me."

"Cover me." Phadian replied, sprinting towards the back of the tree.

Somewhere behind him, he heard Erky shout, "Protect us!" The cry ended in a high, shrill whistle. He knew without looking that Erky was summoning an Undead...he prayed that he hadn't brought down an uncontrollable army on top of them, but he didn't have time for fear or anger...Only biting urgency.

Unbeknownst to him, Korra had started to work her way around the other side of the tree, though the labyrinth of partially destroyed walls and heaps of crumbling rock. She saw a bright orange flame burst out from one side of the tree, saw Mata'Alian tumble away from it, and realized for the first time how _pissed_ she was. This tree was an unholy, unnatural example of a growing demonic influence on the world and she was _not going to stand for it! _

The little girl popped out in front of her suddenly, forcing her to stop in her tracks. They stared at each other for a moment before she pointed at Korra, uttered something, and the ranger felt panic rise up like an ugly beast to grip her. She turned, ready to run.

On the opposite side, Mogue charged the Druid as his casting became more frantic. His mace struck the creature hard against the back of the ribcage, but it failed to break his concentration. He smirked down at the dwarf, sneered, and finished his spell. Mata'Alian, in his desperation, charged the caster. The former elf knocked him aside like he was nothing. In the darkness, Maple peered over the stone wall and saw the destroyed corpse of the paladin beginning to twitch and squirm. She pulled her sling, loaded a pebble and watched for an opening as Erky charged.

She saw him swing, saw the Druid sweep past him, and saw Erky bring his own hammer down into his knee. He screamed in agony as the blow shattered the edge of his kneecap and dislocated it. The halfling groaned, pressed her palm over her eyes, and sighed. It was a wonder they were alive at all...The motion of the shambling zombie caught her attention. For a moment, she thought she would have to take it down, but it passed by her without a second glance. Behind the tree, about forty feet from her, Phadian dropped his bag, snatched a vial from it, and downed it in one gulp.

Trying to buy him time, Mogue struck out at the Druid. He managed to hit him, but the blow didn't seem to faze him one bit. He laughed, lashed out, and threw the dwarf down to one knee.

Korra, out of the corner of her eye, saw the battle and it stilled her for a fraction of a second. It was all the time the armor needed to cast the counterspell. In a thundering voice that carried rage and disappointment and desperation, she heard: "Kill him! Take his power!"

With vitriol she didn't know she had, she charged the Druid and attacked him brutally. Kicking, clawing, and screaming she dragged him to the ground. It gave Mata'Alian the precious seconds he needed to scramble over the steps and strike the the Druid. That blows of the mace against his back and chest were enough to snap the hybrid creature's concentration, and his spell. As he tried to claw his way out from under them, Maple saw the little girl moving in.

The tiny female uttered something, and Maple saw Korra jolt underneath the pain of a spell. But she shrugged it off with a screeching cry. The halfling wasn't entirely certain what happened next, only that Korra and Mogue were suddenly flung off with a flash of light. Her eyes flickered to the gnome as he gripped his knee and began casting. In the same moment, the Druid cast a magic missile spell that hit him full in the chest. By skill or chance, the gnome managed to hold his concentration and complete the spell.

"I pity you." Erky told the Druid as he stepped aside and allowed the reanimated body of the paladin to shamble up the steps and at the elf-hybrid caster. The Druid sneered at it, stepped aside, and the body crumpled to the floor.

Perhaps he intended to say or do more, but his words were cut off by a scream of rage as Phadian unleashed a wave of magic fire against the trunk of the tree. To his dismay, it did not flare along the wet trunk, but he saw how deeply he had damaged it. The Druid turned, his eyes flaring hate and anger, and Mogue saw his chance. He charged, cracking the head of the mace against the caster's spine.

The sound of his screams was what woke Ruby. She gasped, fearful for a fraction of an instant that she would find herself in Hell. And then she realized she was alive and annoyed. She glanced over her shoulder to the knots tied around her wrists and ankles. She would have to give Korra refresher lesson...She twisted her arm, felt the loops loosen, and pulled herself free. She grabbed her dagger, cut the coils around her ankles, stood up, and started running back towards her friends.

She watched as Korra swung wildly at the Druid and managed to slash deep into his chest. He fell backwards, scrambled up, and cast a spell. For a moment, nothing happened...and then the ground erupted in living vines. Maple was captured and entangled, pinned to the ground. Mata'Alian made a valiant effort to escape them, and managed to keep his arms free. His legs, however, were cased in the vines and rooted to the ground. He took a swing, catching the Druid across the cheek with his mace.

Erky, who recognized the spell as soon as the first line was uttered, had managed to tumble out of the area and onto safe ground behind the Druid. He spun hard, slamming the edge of his hammer into the creature. Phadian, feeling the ground quake from the force of the entangle spell, sprinted back around the tree and found himself not ten feet from the Druid.

He had an odd moment of...apathy. This was a talented, powerful man and he felt he should have been sad that he had been reduced to the pawn of a sentient, evil tree...But he didn't. He saw the leather armor and the cloak of Elven make and felt...nothing...until he saw Mogue strike the Druid. From his left, he saw Korra pull her staff and ram it deep into the Druid's throat. He croaked, blood spilled from his lips, and he fell forward.

She felt Ceilidh rise up and heard her order thunder across her mind: "Hold him and breathe his soul!" She leaned down, her lips trembling, and pulled his body up towards her own.

"I don't think so!" Phadian cried, his arm shooting up, "STOP!"

Korra shuddered as it torn between two choices, hesitated, looked at him, and then bent down. Her lips were almost on his when she realize that it...the energy, the power, all of it...was _gone. _Dismay was replaced by rage faster than she could stop it and she threw the body down and turned her fiery gaze on the cleric. Phadian shot her back an uneasy smile.

Beside them, Mogue, oblivious to the magical war flaring around him, began pulling the kegs of ethanol out of his bag and jamming them in the roots of the tree. He had hesitated for a moment, looked deep into the eyes of the dogs, and saw his answer...His days in mines and on battlefields had taught him where to look for his answer...they were begging, pleading silently, for the relief of death...for an end to their agony...It was time to burn away the evil, he decided.

Behind him, Ruby slid to a stop at the edge of the writhing plot of vines. She saw Korra, gasping for breath with her teeth clenched, and saw Phadian throw himself in front of Mogue.

"What are you doing?!" The cleric demanded.

"These creatures deserve an end to their suffering." The dwarf told him.

"I would have begged for death at first, too, when you cut me out. Give them the same chance I had! Please!" Phadian begged.

The dwarf stopped, looked over the cleric, and nodded, "Then I will help you."

"Thank you!" Phadian breathed, turning to start cutting one of the dogs free. In his haste, he missed his step, and a vine lashed around his ankle and yanked him down.

Korra saw him fall forward, catch himself on his hands, and heard Ceilidh shout, "This is your chance! Take your revenge!"

Before she could stop herself, before she could think, the red veil of blood lust dropped down over her eyes. She charged him, slipped on the damp stone, and fell into the vines. They wrapped around her, tightened, and pulled her low to the ground.

To her right, Mata'Alian managed to cut himself free and began to help Mogue peel away the moist bark of the tree. Maple, watching him, eventually squirmed free of the vines, crawled out of the writhing mass, and began looting the body of the female caster. There was a chance she would have something that might help them save the blink dogs. But ultimately all she found was a signet ring for the Clan of Holkov. She eyed it, and pocketed it. Turning around, she saw Erky fall to his knees, clasp his hands, and begin to pray under his breath. Crossing her arms over her chest, she watched as Mata'Alian and Mogue began carving a perimeter out around the dogs.

It was not even thirty seconds later than Erky jerked upright, spread his arms and shouted, "Holy Ehlonna commands you begone!"

The vines froze, wriggled softly, and suddenly crumpled into soil. Korra pulled herself up, pulled the dagger at her belt, and charged Phadian.

"Cleric!" Ruby screamed, giving him just enough time to turn around, catch the hilt of her dagger, and lever her down.

Hidden by the grasses surrounding her, Maple began to circle around the ranger. She would not have been the first one charmed that day...Seemingly oblivious to the impending internal danger, Erky walked calmly up the stairs, pressed his palm to the tree, and started to chant.

Phadian recovered his balance, pressed his palm against Korra's chest, and cast a calming spell. She clawed at his wrists, tried to wrench him down, and suddenly softened. She looked disoriented, opened her mouth to say something, closed her lips and looked up at him with a painful kind of helplessness. She wanted to say something but Ceilidh hissed at her, "Leave him. He's not worth your time. You might do something useful and work at the tree."

Standing, the ranger cast a magic missile at the tree. Erky glanced at her, smiled, and turned back to the tree. He said something she didn't understand, and the tree begin to _shriek_. Mata'Alian didn't stop hacking. If anything, the idea that they had managed to injure the unnatural growth seemed to spur him on.

Ruby, however, noticed what they didn't...the damage to the tree, combined with their efforts to cut the dogs free, had started to core it out...it was beginning to creak and lean to one side...

"We need to hurry!" She told them, pulling her dagger from her belt and slicing the bloody tendrils that held them to the tree. Blood spattered her, drenching Mogue's armor and staining Mata'Alian's chest until they were slick with it.

Korra stepped up beside her, helping her with the finer detail carving. She even forced a smile when the rogue turned to her and told her, "Your knots need work. I'm disappointed in you."

The ranger smiled wryly at her, laughed, and said, "Glad to have you back."

"Here we go!" Mogue told them, drawing attention to the first one. He peeled the bark away from its face, taking flesh and chunks of muscle with it. The dog whimpered, cried out, and fell into Phadian's arms. The cleric stumbled back, set it down in his lap, and began casting.

Mogue, however, began to question what good they could do...he could see the pale shining white of its ribs, thinly veiled with red flesh...He looked down at the mace and asked, "Can they be saved?"

"Perhaps. They may yet die, but they can be saved from this eternal torment." It replied.

The dwarf looked back at the cleric, watched as some flesh grew over the worst of the injuries, and turned back to keep working. Behind him, he heard the cleric begin talking in a language he had never heard before: Canine.

"Please stay. Please." Phadian begged him, "Hold on a bit longer."

It croaked back weakly in Common, "My family?"

"We're doing what we can." Phadian told it.

"Can you help them?"

The cleric looked up, saw how desperate the situation in front of him had become, and told the creature honestly, "I don't know."

"If you can't save them, please don't save me." It told him.

Ruby glanced over her shoulder, met its pain-shiny gaze with her teal eyes and told it evenly, "If we can't save them, I'll cut your throat myself."

Phadian stood up, took a deep breath, and said, "We need to pray."

"I'm just desperate enough to try it." Ruby sighed, wiping blood away from her eyes.

They gathered in a circle, called to Ehlonna, and waited. None of them were sure how much time passed before they heard the angry echo of a woman call, "You children ask too much!" and disappear just as quickly as it had come.

"Some goddess you've got there." Ruby hissed at the cleric as she turned to begin hacking at the tree.

Phadian wanted to argue, but couldn't. It felt like Ehlonna had ripped a hole in his chest and poured in salt for good measure. For the moment, though, he didn't have time to grieve his loss of standing, or feel the resentment of his goddess he was sure would come later.

He picked up his blade, took a shaky breath, and started cutting out the second one. Mogue and Mata'Alian closed in to help him, Ruby crouched at his feet as she worked around the perimeter they had already carved. Maple did what she could to comfort the dog they had already freed.

At some point Korra, tired, covered in blood, and hurt, asked Ceilidh if she could help. The armor almost laughed at her, "No. It would be a waste."

"Then what should I do?" The ranger thought back.

"Burn them with the tree."

Some part of her that was all too distant and too removed objected, but it didn't matter...Ceilidh had her again. She watched as Ruby and Mogue eased the second dog out of the fleshy trunk and into Phadian's arms. And then she got up and started rearranging the kegs of alcohol Mogue had laid out.

"What are you doing?" Ruby asked when Korra started trying to push a wooden cask into the roots.

"Finishing this." Korra replied.

"And the third dog?" Ruby snapped back.

"It's already as good as dead." The ranger told her.

"Aren't you supposed to give a damn? Since when were you into taking the easy way out?" Ruby's voice was approaching a shout.

Erky eyed the ranger for a moment as he knelt down with Phadian and started healing the second dog, but said nothing.

"Which is really better, Ruby?" Korra responded, "They can die in the tree relatively quickly, or like those two: slowly, painfully."

"That's not a decision you get to make!" Ruby shouted back, pulling her short sword up defensively.

Korra's hand went to her staff. She sighed, pulled it from its holster, and knocked Ruby's dagger out of her hands. Ruby crouched, ready to take the ranger down physically, when the tree began to groan. They froze, and watched as the trunk began to tear. Mogue and Mata'Alian exchanged glances, and each dropped down to the floor. Mogue gathered Phadian and one of the dogs into his arms and pulled them away just as Mata'Alian carried Erky and the second blink dog to safety. The tree was silent for a moment, and then toppled with the sickening sound of ripping flesh. The third dog, still trapped by the unnatural umbilical cords of the tree, was torn in two. Its heart fell from its destroyed chest, beat weakly on the dirty, damp stone...and stilled.

Something, however, remained. A staff, rising from the core of the tree, began to vibrate with gathering power.

Korra's armor shrieked at her, "Protect the staff!" in the same moment Mogue's mace shouted at him, "Get it!" The dwarf and the ranger froze, locked gazes, and sprinted towards it just as Phadian and Erky, realizing the danger, did the same.

Ruby dropped to one knee, pulled her crossbow, and took aim at Korra. She wasn't going to fire if she could help it, but there was no guaranteeing which person would get there first. She watched as Erky kicked off the ground, reached out, and seized the staff. The ground began to quake the gnome reeled on them and screamed, "STOP!" in a voice that was otherworldly.

Mogue moved to stop him when the mace shouted at him, "Bow to him!"

And then came the flood of visions...

TBC


	18. Chapter 18

_**Chapter Eighteen: As the Tides of Time Turn Again, Part 1**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own D and D, but the characters and plot within are the intellectual property of several very inspired individuals. **_

Korra and Mogue both fell to their knees, overcome by a riptide of emotion and vision and sensation. Unfolding before their eyes was the history, the tragedy, of the citadel.

It had been a stronghold for the small village that used to surround it. It was full of people, genuinely happy people. It was tiny, but prosperous in bounty and in the generosity of its citizens' hearts. And then it melted away to reveal an elf astride a white steed, commanding the might of more than two thousand soldiers. He raised his sword, which shone light mithril in the moonlight, and called, "My land, serve me!" The scene floated away to the image of the citadel's monks preparing for battle. The war was long, fought on the fronts of steel and magic. Things worse than death were visited upon by both sides. The flames of the burning villages flickered then to a priest kneeling in prayer. He said something to the men behind him, and was suddenly overcome. Dropping to the floor, he yelled as his bones began to shift and lengthen, as his skin began to stretch and turn green. But before his terrible transformation was complete, three more rushed in and dragged him down. They shoved him into a casket, and sealed it with iron clamps. His brother, hearing of this, began to pray in his chambers. As the door to them was forced open, he smiled, and dissolved into a pool of blood that raced away. There were others, men and women who prayed for horrible transmutation only to be stopped by their former brothers and sisters. As one fell, her head rolling away from her shoulders, the image died back to reveal the king, his crown blazing, opening the doorway to the citadel and charging forward. From the darkness, another priest charged him. His fangs glistened silver and then, wet with the blood of the king, crimson. They were hovering over the citadel now, watching the tiny fires dance and the soldiers vie for life and power; and then two clawed hands reached from the sky to cradle the citadel...and rend the earth beneath it. It fell, rock crumpling as the earth around it shook...but it was too deep...things started to come out. Creeping, skittering, unnatural things...And then it flashed to a very old man, praying high in a tower. He watched from that lonely window as the people below him were slowly, day after day, made less...human...Suddenly he was in the citadel, a wooden stake raised high in his hand, held over the chest of another priest with gleaming fangs.

Korra was shaken from the reverie by the venom of Ceilidh's voice: "It's his fault!"

Mogue was brought by back the desperate plea of his mace: "Save him!"

"Erky, put the staff back!" Phadian cried, taking a step backwards as a desiccated began to writhe up from the dying stump. Behind him, Ruby lifted her crossbow, fear washing over her skin.

Mata'Alian bristled at the sudden change in the gnome and attacked, intent on getting the staff away from him. Erky, however, merely held his hand up, and the man was dropped to his knees with the effects of a holding spell.

His eyes drifted up and locked with Korra's: "He's coming after you. Run!"

Ceilidh tried to scream something else, tried to _make _her stay but for the first time in weeks, Korra was thinking clearly. She turned on her heel, and sprinted away from the rising evil.

Ruby, sensing it was better to let her go, decided it was better to stay. Phadian was going to need back-up. He charged forward, struck the rising creature with his blade, and was knocked back as the monster shouted, "You're the first to die!"

"We need to get out of here!" Mogue yelled as he shoved himself between Erky and the two rising shapes.

Erky, however, had other ideas. He turned over his shoulder, possessed by ancient magic, and bellowed at them to run. Mata'Alian met his gaze and said evenly, "I'm not leaving until everyone else is gone."

"Then you can die in kind!" The gnome shrieked back.

Ruby took her chance, moved back twenty feet to the remains of a wall and ducked behind it. If need arose, she could fire with cover or move back around to deal damage from the rear. She saw Phadian move to strike the rising forms again and watched Erky pivot to grip him in a hold spell.

"I told you to run!" He shouted.

"How am I supposed to when you're holding me?!" Phadian yelled back with unexpected sarcasm.

"You attacked too soon!" The entity possessing Erky told him, "I expected that kind of behavior from the ape! None of you are in any form except that one," His gaze fell on Mogue, "to fight this battle." Rolling his eyes, he raised his voice and eyes and said, "And the one behind the wall needs to get farther away!"

"Last I checked I didn't take orders from you!" Ruby shot back in a biting sing-song.

She sat up, balanced on one knee and the flat of one foot to take aim, and felt something sharp clamp down on her ankle. Without warning, she found herself on the floor of one of the first rooms they had ever explored.

"Fucking blink dogs..." She hissed, slamming her fist into the ground in frustration. Picking herself up, she checked her crossbow, and started running back towards her friends. She wasn't even twenty feet down the hall when Phadian was unceremoniously dropped down on top of her. He scrambled up and asked, "Are you going back for the others?"

"We went back once. We will not go back again." The dog told him.

Even Ruby didn't have it in her to be angry. She suspected they had been risking themselves down in the dark for a long time now. She did, however, have enough venom left to tell Phadian that they were done helping magical creatures for a very long time.

He opened his mouth to say something and she cut him off, "Shut up and run."

* * *

Caught somewhere between the danger at her back and the promise of light in front of her, Korra realized what she needed to do. She _had _to get that armor off. She started fighting it off of her shoulders when she heard Ceilidh begin to laugh.

* * *

One of them rose, taking on the shape of a human. He was emaciated, weak musculature stretched tight over brittle bone. And his fangs gleamed like tiny silver tips lapping his thin lips. "This must be difficult for you." He said, smiling cruelly at Erky.

"Speak not, demon!" The gnome cried back.

"You created me," Its grin stretched sickly, "Made this whole mess in the first place."

Mata'Alian bristled at the creature, growled something inhuman, and charged it. The vampire, bemused, caught his throat in one hand and lifted him off the ground. He glanced him over, laughed and asked, "What did you hope to accomplish, small man?"

Erky moved to help him, but the vampire batted him away like he was a fly. The stone that broke his fall cracked underneath the force of his body striking it. It was the final straw for Mogue. The dwarf could not, _would not _allow his comrades to fall to this foul creature. He charged, hoping to bring the mace down on its vile head only to have it laugh and say, "My brother awakens! And you, my gnomish friend, should recognize him. After all, it's you!"

* * *

"Stop!" Phadian told Ruby.

"What's wrong?" She asked, skidding to a halt a few feet in front of him.

"We're never going to make it back in time this way."

"So what do you suggest?!" She shouted back.

Phadian ignored her vitriol and called out in Canine, "Please! I'm begging you to return to us!"

One of them, miraculously blinked it and said, "We have already saved you. Why do you seek to return?"

"My friends are down there!" He told it.

"Friends?" The dog cocked its head.

"My packmates." Phadian clarified.

"Alright, enough of this," Ruby broke in, pushing her way between him and the dog, "My best friend, the only person I trust at my back is down there. You wanted to die with your pack; let me be with mine."

The dog looked at her, sniffed at her, and bit down on her shoulder. Before the pain could even register on her face, she was gone and Phadian was alone.

* * *

Ruby stood up and felt her lips pull up into a smile before she could help it. Beside her, she faintly heard the dog say, with a certain amount of joy, "Die with your pack, and be well." If that was all she could hope for...well, she was where she belonged...and happy to be back...Or, at least she felt happy until Korra looked up at her with big, fearful eyes and said, "Please help me out of this thing! It's going to kill me!"

The rogue jumped up, clamped her fingers on the edges of the rings and started pulling them down as Korra bent over to try to shimmy out. For a moment, it looked like they might be able to fight it off of her; and then it tightened, grew heavier, and settled back into place. Ruby dropped the chain, gripped her friend's shoulders, and saw the change. The fear, the _real _Korra, died back to be replaced by some passive facade. But what else could she do but stay with her and stop her if it came to that?

"I'm with you." Ruby told her, pushing her blonde hair aside as the woman she loved disappeared behind the mask.

Korra, the real one, nodded, and then as she faded, turned away and started walking back towards the battle.

* * *

Mata'Alian, true to his nature, clamped down on the vampire's arm with his teeth. The creature glanced at him, cocked his head, smiled and said, "You don't want to bite that, but keep on going. We'll see you later, I'm sure." He patted the man's head and turned back to the group.

Erky picked himself up, grabbed Mogue and told him to run. From behind the vampire, another one began to rise. The dwarf was certain that death was upon them...and then it tackled the vampire holding Mata'Alian and dragged it to the floor. The force of the blow threw Mata'Alain away from the melee, and he rolled up onto his feet.

Seeing what was likely going to be their only chance of escape, Mogue yelled, "Go!"

* * *

Korra stepped into the room, laid eyes on the vampire as he rose, and heard him say, "Ah, Ceilidh. My daughter, how I've missed you. Come, my darling. Come be with me."

"Daughter?!" Ruby cried at her.

Korra sighed, "Yeah..."

The vampire beckoned with his impossibly long fingers, "Come, my dear."

The ranger felt the armor try to compel her to move into his embrace...But some part of her rose up in righteous rebellion and fear and she looked down at the shirt and said, "I won't go with him. Ruby, help me get this fucking thing off!"

Ruby reached over and started pulling the shirt up as Korra dropped her weight. With her back turned to the battle, she didn't see Erky rise and charge Korra until he had already struck her. A horrified scream rose from the shirt and evaporated. The rogue turned to him, opened her mouth to demand an explanation, and saw the first vampire materialize behind the gnome and cup his chin. Korra and Ruby screamed in tandem; the vampire smirked, stroked the gnome's head lovingly, and snapped his neck.

It smirked down at them, flexed his hand, and was taken to the ground from behind. The second creature threw the vampire aside, clambered on top of him, and grappled him. It glanced over at them and shouted, "Run!"

Korra grabbed the rogue's shoulders, shook her, and nodded. For the first time in weeks, Ceildh's voice was gone from her head and her heart. Erky had freed the soul trapped in the shirt of mithril...his last gift to them. Her lips set thin, she told Ruby, "We have to go."

The rogue looked up, saw Mata'Alian and Mogue preparing to advance, and shook her head. "We can't leave them."

"I can cover you guys. Go!" Mogue told them.

Korra nodded at the dwarf and started running.

"I will not run like a child afraid of the dark!" Mata'Alian replied as he charged one of the vampires. By sheer stupid luck he tripped over the body of Erky and fell flat.

"We have to go, Mata'Alian!" Ruby screamed.

"I have my honorable death here!" He called back as he picked himself up.

"We need to regroup!" She shouted, "Withdraw immediately!"

Mata'Alian said nothing as he sighted his target again.

"Do you want my blood on your hands!" The rogue screamed in desperation, "Because I'm not leaving you until you come with us or fall here!"

The man smiled at her, "But then we will be in Valhalla together."

The rogue felt her knees weaken. In a final act of bare hopelessness, she begged Ehlonna to tell her what to do, to give them _some _way out; if not for her sake, then for the sake of those in her custody. But the goddess did not answer her.

It would be much later before she considered that perhaps the goddess _had _heard her cry and decided to handle it with divine inspiration. At that moment, Mogue stopped, looked up at the man and said, "Is there anything honorable about becoming one of them? He can force you to drink, to become Undead like them."

Mata'Alian stopped, thought about that, and smiled, "Let's go then!"

The dwarf swung the mace down at the vampire, trying to drive it back, only to have the creature capture it. It squeezed it, and a horrified shout rose from it. Suddenly, the voice in his head was gone and he was thrown backwards by the force of the vampire's blow. Rising, he turned and started running.

Korra, suddenly realizing she was alone in the hallway, stopped, sighed, cursed, and turned back. She met them, running towards her, about a minute later. Mata'Alian smiled at her, slapped her on the ass, and told her, "You'll make a good sister one of these days!"

The ranger didn't even have it in her to be offended and turned to the rogue as they started racing towards light, towards safety, and asked, "How did you talk him into it?"

"Run now. Talk later." Ruby breathed back.

* * *

Phadian felt the collapse before he heard it, the shake of rock and soil as parts of the citadel began to collapse in on themselves. He knew in that moment that the way they had gotten in would not be the way they got out. He stopped for only a moment to catch his breath and heard the ceiling above him shatter. He looked up, saw the rock begin to fall, and heard a voice cry out to him. He found himself standing next to the rope that led up from the second layer, where the turtle was beginning to crawl away.

"Who are you?" He demanded to the air around him.

"You know me." It responded, "You have seen me all around."

"Calcrix..." Phadian breathed.

"Go. There is not much time."

The cleric started running down into the dark. It was only a few minutes later than he ran into them. He stretched his arms out, halting them as he gasped for breath.

"We have to go _now_, Phadian!" Korra yelled.

"You can't go that way! It's collapsing!" He told them.

The walls around them began to creak and groan from the strain, thin, web-like cracks beginning to run along the mortar and stones. The ceiling above them shook, throwing a layer of dirt and silt down on top of them. The voice of the vampire that had saved them echoed through the halls, "Please get out! I can't hold it much longer!"

"I can't die down here!" Ruby shouted at him as the panic began to claw at her.

A hissing voice rose up in her mind, clenched her heart in the cold fist of fear, and laughed, "You can and you will. You should have listened to me."

The rogue dropped to her knees, crossing her arms over her chest and trying not to cry. She questioned, only for a moment, whether the people in front of her were worth the eternal damnation that was waiting for her...And then a different voice rose up from the air and the earth around them and said, "I can save you."

And suddenly they were on the surface. The edges of the earth around the citadel started to crack and the stone structure of the once mighty fort began to give. Rock shattered, earth crumbled, and the citadel began to scream. The haunting cries rose up from it like mist, a shrieking cacophony of death and darkness.

The sky above them began to shimmer, revealing a many-colored dragon that shone like the Aurora Borealis against the white clouds. It looked down on them with its gold-blue eyes and said, "Leave us not to die."

"We won't." Phadian told him as it began to fade, leaving a twinkling like so many stars.

"We should go," Mogue said, "We don't know how long it's going to take those two to claw their way out."

And so they left the citadel behind, strangely unfulfilled. They had stopped the festering of the evil, but at what cost? What had the unleashed now?

TBC


	19. Chapter 19

_**Chapter Nineteen: As the Tides of Time Turn Again, Part 2**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own D and D, but the characters and plots within are intellectual property. **_

Korra laid her hand against the tree and tried not to jerk back. It spoke to her, echoing the sentiments those around it...Talk of the day to day lives that these...people...used to have. She found them less disturbing, she thought to herself, when they were hybrid creatures. And if the look on Ruby's face was any indication, so did she.

They didn't seem to know that anything had changed. They would call to them, gloat about their wares, and try to entice them into buying. Not that it mattered with the shops overgrown and destroyed...It was like they had simply erupted up as trees and didn't even realize it...Beyond them, she could vaguely make out the lines of the monastery. It was heavily covered in foliage, but appeared largely intact.

"Let's...go..." The ranger finally said, thanking the tree for its time. It responded pleasantly, asking if she might come visit them later. The ranger nodded, and the tree expressed its gratitude.

The wandered on, eventually coming to the mossy, vine-covered stone arch that marked the entrance to the temple. There was a monk sweeping that yard, who hurried to bow to them. Rising, his hands folded close to his chest, he invited them inside to rest and refresh themselves.

"The elderly elf," Phadian began, "Is he still here?"

"Of course!" The monk beamed back.

"Would it be possible for us to speak to him?" Phadian asked.

"Come inside and into the common room. I will take a message to him and return to you shortly." He said, motioning for them to follow him.

They made themselves comfortable in one of the rooms. It had enough chairs for them, and it was the warmest and safest they had been in several days. They spent probably twenty minutes dozing and chatting quietly among them before another priest brought them cups of tea and several loaves of white bread.

Mogue called the young man over as he was passing out the cups and asked, "Have the attacks continued?"

"No," The acolyte told him, "They stopped right around the time our people underwent their transformation. Kekavellium is grateful that their nightmarish influence has been ended, but feels his people aren't entirely...there."

"I don't suppose you know why they became trees?" Korra asked.

"We have no idea, but they do not seem particularly disturbed by this. In fact, they do not seem to know at all."

"Have you tried telling them?" Ruby asked.

"Why would we?" The young man asked politely, "They are happy."

"So it is fair for them to live a lie, so long as it is a happy one?" The rogue replied.

Korra shot the red-haired woman a glance that silenced her. The young man bowed to them, asked if they needed anything else, and quietly left. It was about an hour and a half later that the young acolyte who had greeted them in the courtyard came back and told them, "If you will follow me, Kekavellium will see you in his chambers."

He bowed and spread his arm, asking them to follow. He took them up several steep, narrow flights of stairs and down a long hallway that ended in an intricately carved stone door. The monk opened it, motioned them in, and bowed to the elderly elf, "Your guests." Without anything further, he turned and closed the door.

"You seem familiar." He said, his voice like the dry crack of leaves in the autumn winds.

"I was asked to return this to you." Mogue told him, giving him the mace.

The old man's face lit up as he pulled the weapon into his lap, "She was my niece. Why isn't she here anymore?"

"She was set free." Mogue replied honestly.

"She protected me..." Kekavellium trailed off, lost in some ancient reverie.

"She protected us all." The dwarf said.

The venerable elf looked up at him and offered it back to him, "She is not here anymore. You should keep it. It appears to have served you well." His gaze suddenly grew softer as he whispered, "My brothers aren't here...It wasn't done right."

He turned his head up at Korra and asked with a kind of fated resignation, "Why did you come back? To kill me?"

The ranger shook her head and replied, "Ceilidh isn't here anymore, either."

"She was such a sweet girl...so nice. It was the blood plague, you know. There was nothing we could do. Not even myself...I tried to help her..." He glanced up, disoriented and asked, "Who are you? Oh, yes...I remember now."

"Well, she wasn't so nice when we found her. I would like to think when she was set free she let go of whatever made her so angry and hateful." Korra told him, closing her hand over his frail fist. The ancient face split into happy wrinkled.

"What do you know about the pieces of Calcrix?" Mogue asked.

"Why, that's mere legend!" Kekavellium replied.

"Not according to this book." Ruby said, pulling the tome from her bag and handing it to him.

"This is ancient lore. Did you not read it?" The elf told her, stroking the cover.

"Pardon me if I was too busy trying to survive." Ruby smirked back coolly.

Korra elbowed her hard and hissed through her clenched teeth, "Show some respect!"

Kakevellium didn't seem to hear either of them. "If the story is to be believed, you need his claw, chest, wing, jaw, tail spike, and a piece of his heart to revive him anew in this world. My brother...you let him free...Where do you think he is going?"

"He's going for the pieces." Phadian told him.

"Do you know where the pieces are?" Korra asked.

"There are some answers in this book. Start at page two hundred and sixty three. Other questions will need to be found, other answers discovered." He said, passing the book back to Ruby.

His eyes began to moisten, "The last person who came through here looking for answers was a young Druid by the name of Belak. I have often wondered what became of him."

"He is at peace." Phadian responded quickly.

"We need supplies, Sir." Mogue said, "If you would be kind enough to grant us permission, we would like to take from the village stock."

"Of course, young man!" Kekavellium smiled, "They have no need for them now."

"Your library here is extensive. Do you happen to have anything on Abyssal?" Ruby asked, folding her arms over her chest.

"Why, of course not. Why would you be interested in such dark matters?"

"Academic interest." She lied.

He apparently bought it. He nodded, hummed to himself for a moment, and said he honestly didn't believe they could help her. He stood up and stared out of the singular, small window that overlooked the remains of the village. "Please, stay for a few days and rest. But I must ask that you not leave your rooms during the night. It would be very dangerous."

They agreed out of necessity. They needed time to rest, a place to repair their equipment and individuals more skilled in magic than they were to identify the items they had found. In the end, the men and the women were set up in different rooms, provided their dinner for the night, and closed in.

* * *

Willow rubbed absently at her shoulder to alleviate the pressure of her bag against it. Glancing around, she smiled at a patch of trees that asked her to play. She told them she would be happy to come back, and they whined at her, but accepted the offer. She had been answering patches of trees like that for hours and was starting to wonder if she was going to find the people she was looking for at all...the blink dogs didn't seem certain that they were even alive...

"Hell yes!" A voice echoed through the trees, "Jackpot!"

Willow saw a blonde woman bounce up, clutching a cluster of pearls in her palm, and pumping her fist.

"Excuse me?"

Korra spun around and laid eyes on the girl. She was a human girl with short, wavy brown hair that swept away from her dark blue eyes. She wore studded leather in an odd burgundy color that the ranger had never seen before, "Yes?"

"Are you one of the dog people?" Willow asked.

"Dog...people?" Korra asked, thoroughly confused.

"Yeah...the ones with the kids."

"The kids! Are they okay?!" Korra shouted back, "Did they make it?"

"They're quite safe!" Willow replied, "The dogs took them to Blue Water about ten days south by south east from here."

"Amazing!" The ranger smiled, offering the small female her hand, "I'm Korra."

"Willow." The blue-eyed girl responded, squeezing her hand.

"Come on. The others are going to want to hear this!"

They chatted lightly as they wandered through the trees. Korra noted the woman had a naturally gentle and quiet tendency towards smiling. She immediately liked her. It must have been about five minutes later that they ran into Ruby as she was taking stock on a cask of rations.

"Hey, Ruby! Look!" Korra smiled, motioning at Willow, "She's the one the dogs dropped the children with!"

The rogue stood up and eyed the girl, sighed, and turned to Korra. In Elvish, she replied, "I turn my back for ten minutes and you think it's a good idea to bring in a new person? We can't be sure she's telling you the truth. For all we know, she was passing by and is going to take advantage of the situation. You disappoint me."

Korra flinched back from the shouting, glanced at Willow and smiled uneasily. As the rogue stormed off back into the trees, she told the human, "We don't have a word for what's wrong with her, but she's more bark than bite."

Willow cocked her head, smiled, and replied, "I like her. She's fun."

"That's probably the healthiest attitude to take with that one." Korra shrugged, motioning her onward.

* * *

Ruby walked off, trying to find a grove that was at least quieter. She stepped into one that was filled with quiet laughter rather than shouting and yelling. She found Mata'Alian, sitting quietly and shaking his head so the beads in his air clicked together, and told him, "Didn't expect to find you here."

The children—if they could be called them—giggled at him in delight. She felt herself softening and asked him, "You're really good with kids. Did you have them at some point? A wife, maybe?"

He nodded, "They are gone now."

"What happened to them?"

"It was a long winter. They could not survive, so they provided food for us."

"You...ate them?" Ruby felt disgust rising up in her chest, "Your own children?"

"Why are you so angry?" He asked.

Repulsed, she snapped back, "Not having a soul does that."

"You fool yourself." He told her.

"Care to elaborate?" She hissed.

He said nothing and began tossing his hair again, much to the delight of the children, and Ruby walked away.

* * *

Phadian was sitting in what was perhaps the only grove of natural trees when the rogue found him.

"I need to talk to you, cleric."

"Yes?" He asked, politely folding his papyrus and pushing it aside.

"I don't like the new girl Korra brought home. She creeps me out. She's always smiling." Ruby said, folding her arms over her chest and leaning against one nearest tree.

Phadian made no attempt to cover the snort of his laughter, "So she's happy? That's why you don't like her?"

It was in that moment that Korra walked around the other side of the grove, Willow in tow, and told Phadian, "She's the one the blink dogs took the kids to!"

"Hey!" Phadian waved, "Nice to have you!"

Ruby's glare could have curdled milk. He met her gaze, set his mouth and mentioned to Korra in polite Elvish that this wasn't a good time. Willow was beginning to think that she shouldn't mention that she spoke Elvish...In any case, she would rather be with Korra than in the middle of the impending war she felt building between the cleric and red-haired woman.

The ranger nodded back at Phadian and smiled at Willow, "Moving on!"

As the two women disappeared into the trees and out of sight, Ruby turned on Phadian, "I would have appreciated the warning that I was traveling with a murderer."

"What are you talking about?" Phadian asked, genuinely confused.

"Mata'Alian." She snapped back, "If I had known that those children were nothing but a walking meal, I never would have thrown myself into the situations I did!"

"That's not how he feels!" Phadian protested, narrowing his eyes, "And you never did tell us what happened up there with the Orcs."

"Does it matter?" The rogue asked.

"I think it does."

"I can't be the only one concerned with the fact we have a cannibal among us!"

"What did he say?"

"That he ate his children over the course of a hard winter."

"Have you considered they might have been mercy killings?"

"Are you going to condone the murder of children? I expected more of a cleric."

"I think that you're under some pressure, and-" Phadian started.

"You have no right to talk about the 'pressure' I am under!" Ruby screamed. She exhaled hard and walked off. For a moment, Phadian considered going after her, but reasoned it was better for her to come back to him when she was ready.

* * *

"This is Mogue. Our resident dwarf." Korra said, smiling down at him.

He grunted up at them over the hot forge. He had been in the smithy since early morning, piecing together armor for Mata'Alian. It was going to be slow work, given the fact that he was working alone and that the metal needed periodic heating and cooling periods to temper it. Further complicating the situation was the fact that he used a unique mixture of armor that allowed for the greatest protection and mobility given his fighting style.

"Willow is the girl the blink dogs dropped the kids with!" Korra practically beamed.

"Well, I hope you've taken good care of them." He replied before waddling off with a pair of tongs to quench a section of platemail.

She waited for him to be out of earshot before nudging the human and smirking, "He likes you!"

"I...see." Willow smiled back.

"If he didn't, he wouldn't have bothered saying anything at all! There's hope yet!"

Taking the woman's hand, the ranger pulled her back into the forest. They had been walking for a few minutes when she finally asked, "So, what do you do for a living?"

"I'm something of a herbalist." Willow responded.

"You know, I tried it and I just couldn't keep all of them straight." Korra responded.

"I started young." Willow smiled.

"Mata'Alian is going to love you! He's really into the herbal thing, too. It's about the only way we managed to stomach half the shit we found to eat while we were running around. Hey, look! There he is! Hey, Mata'Alian!" Korra waved at him, shouting happily.

The man looked up, snarled, stood up on all fours, and raised his haunches.

"What is he doing?" Willow asked.

"Oh, shit..." Korra trailed off.

He lifted himself up, beat on his chest viciously, and charged the young woman. Korra shoved her way between them but he kept going. Towering over her, he leaned over her shoulders and bellowed deafeningly at the rouge. Willow fell to the ground in terror, clasping her hands over her head and drawing her knees up to guard her chest. The ranger shoved him back hard enough to unsettled his balance and screamed, "Would you stop it! She's a friend! Bad boy!"

Willow privately thought the ranger was crazy, but when the man backed down, settling on his knuckles and growled, "Don't like her!" she had to admit Korra was quite...persuasive.

"The blink dogs sent her!" The ranger shouted at him, wagging her finger.

"Smells bad!" Mata'Alian sniffed.

"And you're no rose!" Korra snapped back.

Mata'Alian growled at her, sniffed at Willow, and stalked off. The ranger threw her arms out in exasperation and sighed, "Sorry about that one. He'll warm up to you. Also, he won't touch you because he knows I would kick his ass. Just...ignore him until" her voice roses to a scream she was sure the man could hear, "He learns to behave like a fucking human!"

"What the hell are you yelling about!" Maple hissed as she climbed down from one of the trees.

"Willow, this is Maple. The resident backpack troll."

"Who are you?" The halfling cocked an eyebrow at the girl.

"Willow." The young woman waved gently with a smile.

"I see." Maple said, shrugging and walking off.

Korra, clearly exasperated, suggested that they just go back to the monastery, adding, "Just...stick around. This is pretty much how we hazed each other in and after this is just gets to be amusing."

Truth be told, Willow already found the whole thing amusing.

* * *

Korra pulled her armor off and stacked it neatly beside her bed. Sighing happily, she realized it was the first time in weeks that she would have that luxury. She felt a little bit giddy with the joy of being able to sleep safely.

"I have extra shirts if you guys need them." She told the other three as she yanked her own over her chest.

"Thank you, but I've got one." Willow said, turning her back modestly to change.

Maple waved the ranger off and stripped her own leathers off. She shimmied into a clean blouse so large it seemed to swallow her.

"Ruby," Korra sing-songed, holding up a spare cotton shirt. "I've got another!"

The rogue glared at the ranger and said, "I'll be fine."

"Alright..." The blonde half-elf sighed, tucking it away and slipping into bed. She leaned over the small table at her side, cupped the flame of the candle, and blew it out.

The red-haired rogue, however, sat up in the darkest corner of the room, her eyes raking the beds in front of her. There was something about that girl, her eyes fell on Willow's gently rising chest, that she didn't trust. And she certainly was not going to risk her life by sleeping. She settled back against the wall, clutched her dagger close, and took a shaky breath.

* * *

Mogue sat by quietly while the cleric went out the ritual casting of identifying their scrolls and items. They had been there for a number of hours going through the roster of things they had found or collected. The Dwarf was hoping to sell off the majority of them to fund the repairs and upgrades their armor and weapons would undoubtedly need if they had attracted the wrath of a vampire. It was a thought that had kept him up for much of the night.

"I will need time to research the ruby dragon but this...This...is quite...unique." The monk said, holding up one of the glass whistles, "Such a rare material."

"What is it?"

"This is one of the Night Caller whistles. They are made of Nephilium. It has properties similar to mithril. When you gather it in large quantities, it gains a preternatural sentience. It is very rare and very valuable. How many do you have?"

"We found nine." Mogue told him.

"I would be willing to pay you one thousand gold pieces for each."

"I would be happy to be rid of them." He replied. He would have been said the same thing even if the obvious monetary benefit had been absent from the bargain. He also reasoned that his comrades would appreciate the money more than the possibility of bringing the undead down upon them.

"Excellent. Go down into the monastery and go left from the animal husbandry unit. From there, go right down the narrow hallway and past the supply rooms. Make a left at the third door down and go downstairs. Make a right and there will be a gentleman waiting for you. Come an hour before sunset."

"I will be there." The dwarf told him.

* * *

Phadian settled into the plush armchair in their quarters and started reading the book he had recovered from the library. Ehlonna was listed as one of the first of the Holy Pantheon and there was an extensive reading selection compiled from a number of high priests and priestesses. Among them, he realized with a flash of sadness, was an elf sharing his clan name...He sighed, laid his head back against the cushions, and tried to push down the memories. His father would not have been pleased with how his faith had been shaken...Truthfully, he was disappointed with himself for how he felt. Try as he might, he couldn't deny his frustration, or his resentment...the sadness...

"Cleric, I need a favor."

He looked up at Ruby, closed the book, and smiled, "Yes?"

"I need to take a nap. Do you mind just keeping an eye out?"

He tried hard not to let the shock register on his face. The fact that she had asked for someone's help, period, was astounding. The fact that she had come to him made him vaguely wonder if the rotation of the earth had changed.

"Of course. Do you mind if I read?"

"Not at all." She replied, flopping down on the bed behind him. She slept for perhaps two hours before rising, pulling her hair back, and thanking him cursorily.

"Are you alright?" He asked, peering over the top of his book as she walked towards the doorway.

"Always." She told him.

He sat there for a while, contemplating the many threads—tangled as they were—that had knotted to form a semblance of group cohesion. He worried, though, that forces unseen were beginning to strain those bonds...He could understand, at least hypothetically, Ruby's distrust of people in general. He could understand Mata'Alian's need to adhere to the code of Thor. He could understand Mogue's need to pull the group together. He could understand Maple's need to correct her past mistakes. He could understand Korra's love of gems and jewels and the financial security they provided. The one he didn't understand was Willow...

He stood up, put his books and scrolls down, and decided there was only one way to fix that problem. He needed to find her, and talk to her.

* * *

Mogue finished the last seams on a piece of chain for Mata'Alian's chest and surveyed the the transition plates between them. With the studded leather guards, he would have ideal protection that wouldn't hinder his speed or flexibility. It had taken him the better part of the morning, and it he needed to get going. He checked the weight of the pouch at his hip, and sighed. It would be good to be rid of them...

* * *

"We need to talk." Ruby said.

"What's up?" The ranger smiled.

"Mata'Alian. I don't trust him."

"What happened?" The blonde asked. This was highly...unusual, even for the rogue.

"We were talking. I guess he had a wife and kids at one point..."

"Really?" Now she was curious. "I guess I'm not surprised, given how good he is with kids..."

"He ate them."

The ranger's eyes widened, but she shrugged, "He is basically a carnivorous ape..."

"How many animals eat there own young?" Ruby asked.

Korra thought it for a moment, shrugged, and said, "You'd be surprised."

"Do you realize that those kids might have been his next meal?"

"Look, I seriously doubt that, but let me talk to him."

"I think the time for talking is a bit behind us." Ruby snapped over her shoulder, turning around to walk away. "If I can't get straight answers from you guys, I'll get them somewhere else."

"Where are you going?" Korra asked.

"I'm overdue for a bath." The rogue replied coldly.

The ranger certainly felt the sting of that statement. Any other time Ruby felt the need to clean up, she had asked Korra to do it for her...But more than cleaning up or giving the ranger a chance to use her magic, it was...bonding...flirting...

* * *

The red-haired rogue felt a flash of guilt. Korra, of all people, certainly had not earned her ire. But as it stood, she could use a bath if for no other reason that it would give her a chance to breathe. She found one of the monks and asked. He replied he would be happy to show her the way and send someone up to her room for her clothes.

He and two others proceeded to lead her down into the base of the tower where a number of stone pools were set into the floor. Shallow troughs ran between them, linking them up to a small set of bamboo tubes that drew fresh water away from a nearby river. The first pool fed the others and the last pool functioned as a drain to take water back to the earth.

She thanked them and started to strip down when she realized they weren't leaving. She was a bit irritated with the idea of celibate monks gawking at her, but wasn't inclined to let that dictate or stop how she spent the first few hours she'd had to herself in weeks. She turned away from them, pulled off the last of her clothing, and slipped into a bath.

It was cool water with a sweet, mineral-smell. She cupped it with her hands and stared into it for a minute. The face staring back at her was too pale, too thin...too lifeless. She reclined against the stone and, looking up, realized that the monks had busied themselves with cleaning and repairs. Though they didn't leave the room, they made every effort to avoid looking at her or moving near her. They actually made her feel a bit better...Less alone.

In the end, though, she would be...She couldn't delay it any longer...She had been fortunate to avoid her master's wrath this far in. Running would be useless, and hiding even more so...She would have to approach him...

* * *

"How far away from home are you?" Phadian asked as he hefted a load from Willow's petite shoulders. The cart behind them was being loaded with provisions. The casks held water, flour, lard, dried meats and fruits. Tucked between the rations were extra clothes and repair kits for their armor and weapons.

"About fourteen days." Willow told him pleasantly.

"Are you from a village?"

"No. I'm from the city of Blue Water. We're a major vein on the trade routes."

"It's my understanding you helped the blink dogs."

"Yes. They were quite cordial." The woman replied, sweeping her hair back away from her eyes.

"And the children? I was wondering if they wound up finding homes." Phadian continued, shoving another bundle of cloth into the cart.

"Yes, they did."

"Even the Orc children?"

"Of course!" Willow smiled.

"I'm glad to hear that. I worried about them." Phadian smiled at her and was pleased to find her eyes stayed on his and didn't wander the scars of his face.

"I understand we're leaving tomorrow." Willow told him.

"Yes." He responded, "Bright and early."

Mata'Alian suddenly barreled at them, holding a sack that was writhing. Excitedly, he held it up and declared, "Food!"

"What did you find?" Phadian asked.

"Insects." He responded.

"In...sects..." Phadian trailed off. As much as he admired the fact that Mata'Alian had the willpower and dedication to hunt down several pounds of worms and beetles, he wasn't sure how he felt about eating them...

"Good for you!" He chanted.

"Can I try one?" Willow asked.

Phadian thought about telling her to spare herself, but he certainly didn't want to discourage Mata'Alian from hunting. He thought maybe she would even back out of it on her own. Much to his surprise, though, she took a beetle, and happily tossed it in her mouth.

"Not bad." She told the man.

Mata'Alian, looking thoroughly confused, thanked her somewhat apprehensively and moved back into the woods.

"You didn't have to do that." Phadian told her, "He would have warmed up to you on his own."

"Eh. Why not? I enjoy trying new things." Willow smiled.

* * *

Mogue passed by dozens of monks and not one of them acknowledged or questioned his presence down in the darkness of their deepest hallways. He imagined the elderly monk had mentioned he was expecting company. But much to his surprise, it was not the same monk sitting in a poorly lit room waiting for him.

"Enter, young man." He told the Dwarf.

"My young apprentice was called away." The man began, "But he left with me a piece of information he thought you might appreciate. The ruby dragon in your possession is made of the bones of Calcrix himself. It took the skill of many of us to identify it, but knowing what it is, we pass it along gladly into your hands. Now, on the matter of the Night Caller whistles–"

"I have them." Mogue told him.

"Excellent. And the agreed upon price was one thousand gold per piece?"

"Correct."

"For a lot of nine pieces?"

"Yes."

"Very well, but since I feel that you really have been cheated on the price, I have something else to offer you." The man pulled a cloth-wrapped bundle from his robes and offered it to the dwarf.

Mogue accepted it and peeled back the layers to reveal a fine blade crafted in mithril. Even in the poor light of the cavernous room, it gleamed like liquid silver, throwing tiny stars of light onto the walls.

"I will accept this." Mogue said with a nod, bundling it back up.

"Excellent. We thank you for all that you have done and pray for strength for you in your coming quest." The monk told him, his wrinkled face splitting into a smile.

The dwarf smiled back and, tying the gold pouch to his belt and the sword to his hip, walked out.

* * *

Ruby had been walking for almost half an hour when she finally reached the edge of the village where natural foliage started to encroach on the unnatural tree growth. It was the only place where she could manage some amount of quiet...even, then, though, she realized she couldn't concentrate...She must have stood there staring at the ground for another twenty minutes before asking, "What do you want of me?"

She felt his presence rise up like a mist around her, and suddenly tighten around her like a serpent, "You failed me."

"I'm sorry." She gasped, shuddering against the feeling of him around her.

"I still want that name. Conveniently, one of the vampires still remains in the ruins. Seek him out and get the information I desire."

"Alright." She replied, hoping that was the end of it. And for a moment, she felt the presence begin to recede. And then it closed in again, choking her on the sheer density of it.

"If you fail me," It whispered, "I'll drag you to Hell and I know exactly how we'll start: I'll burn you alive, beginning at the tips of your toes and working my way up to your sweet little cheeks. I'll take my time, go slow, break you."

Ruby nodded, biting back panicked tears.

"Oh, and bring back Ceilidh. I found her amusing." Phraxius hissed before disappearing altogether.

She dropped to one knee, overcome with fear and shame, and then realized what she had to do...She had to leave.

* * *

Korra felt it first; the feeling that someone was watching her. It didn't upset her in the slightest, after all it felt...familiar...and then she heard the sound of metal striking wood, a whispered curse, and a frantic scramble.

"What the hell are you doing?" She asked, sitting up and locking eyes with Ruby.

"Just taking stock of my supplies." The rogue replied.

The ranger knew instantly she was lying, "It must be bad for you to try to get away with lying to me."

"It's...Korra, please, I'm begging you...take off the armor."

"Why?" The ranger asked, "Ceilidh's gone. It's alright."

"You don't understand!" The rogue cried back in Elvish, "You _need _to take it off."

Willow heard the shout, stiffened, and opened one eye beneath. She peered over the edge of the blanket and watched Korra stand up and move towards the rogue. Ruby flinched back.

"What happened?" Korra demanded in Elvish.

"I have new orders." Ruby responded.

"What did he tell you to do?" The ranger asked.

"I need to go back, get a piece of information from one of the vampires—I don't know which one–and return Ceilidh's soul to the armor."

"Why?"

"I don't know!" Ruby shouted back.

"You don't have to go!" Korra told her, gripping her shoulder, "You have us. Stay here. Stay with us. With me."

"If I stay, I'm putting you at risk."

Korra laughed, "My life is already full of risk. It's what makes it fun."

"I can't keep doing this." Ruby admitted to her.

"You're not alone in it!" Korra smiled, "You have us."

Ruby opened her mouth to say something and was cut off by a malicious hiss behind her, "But you're always alone. Just you and me. Forever."

The rogue went sheet white and Korra felt her begin to tremble beneath her hands. She felt a sudden flash of anger as she yanked Ruby close and shouted into the air, "Get the hell out of here! You're not welcome here!"

Willow tensed, reached for her dagger, and watched Korra glare into the darkness. She saw the ranger whisper something to the rogue, and then heard her say, "Just...stay for tonight. We can work it out in the morning."

Ruby sighed, thought about it, and nodded. Korra smiled at her, patted her shoulder, and then moved her blanket and pillow down to the floor in front of the only door. Willow, deciding the situation was handled, curled back under her blankets, relaxed her grip on her dagger, and fell back asleep. For Ruby, however, the long night was only beginning. She sat down in the corner, rubbed her eyes, and stared up at the ceiling.

TBC


	20. Chapter 20

_**Chapter Twenty: The Village of the Damned **_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own D and D, but the characters and plots within are intellectual property. **_

They had been given four oxen to make their journey easier. They were still a bit sickly, but light and fresh grass had already started to bring some color and vigor back to them. And, sick as they were, they made the journey much easier. The three day walk from the original village took them a little under one. The sky was just beginning to orange when they crossed into it.

The screams echoing from the groves of trees were horrible. They were clustered around the remains of Hank's tavern, having fallen in what must have been the last battle. Korra had scouted it out, following a set of tracks a little more than eight weeks old before it terminated in a screaming tree.

"It must have happened right after we left..." She trailed off, standing up and wiping off her knees.

Phadian sighed as he listened to the screams. They were begging for help, screaming for more weapons...shouting out as loved ones fell...screaming as they were overtaken...He approached one, begged it to talk to him, but it just screamed...yelling and crying...

Hanging from one of the trees was the Sheriff.

"Coward," Ruby hissed, staring at his body with contempt, "He took the easy way out."

"What should we do with him?" Maple asked.

"Let him rot there." Ruby spat back.

Mogue glared at her and cut the man down. He started going through his clothes, looking for something to wrap the body with, when Mata'Alian appeared next to him and offered him one of his own. The dwarf accepted it wordlessly.

"And what should we do about this...mess?" Maple asked.

"Cut them down." Ruby replied.

"You can't be serious!" Maple cried back.

"This isn't living!" The rogue yelled back, "Would you subject them to an eternity of this torture?"

"I am _not _going to murder these people! There might be a way to save them!" Maple yelled.

There was a part of her that refused to accept anything in the world, even death and damnation, were eternal. There _had _to be a way.

"You're being foolish." Ruby told her coldly.

Maple felt the sting of her remark, "I came back for _you!"_

"To what effect? Should I thank you for holding us up for almost five days?" The rogue snapped back.

"She was tortured for your sake." Mata'Alian told Ruby.

"I think you should keep your mouth shut considering that you're living for your death and nothing in between." Ruby replied.

Korra glared at her hard, and Ruby met it with equal fury. Finally, the ranger broke the lock of their eyes and said, "There is the matter of your new orders."

"New orders?" Phadian asked, feeling himself bristle.

Ruby shrugged noncommittally.

"What did he tell you to do?" The cleric demanded.

"Get some information and return Ceilidh to her proper place: the mithril shirt." The rogue responded, refusing to meet his eyes.

"What kind of information?" Phadian continued. His voice was rising steadily.

"The name of the tree."

"From who?"

"One of the vampires." Ruby shrugged.

"Did he give you a time line?" Phadian asked, forcing himself not to shout.

"No."

"Alright. That's something." The cleric sighed, "That gives us time to figure something out."

"Like what?" Ruby asked venomously, "I think you're afraid of not having someone around to do the work for you. It might do you some good to get your hands dirty for once, cleric."

"I think your mood would improve if you were sleeping at night." Phadian shot back.

"I think my mood is just fine."

"Enough!" Korra shouted, pushing herself between Ruby and the rest of the group, "We need to get moving. Can we get along long enough to manage that?"

No one said anything, so she nodded said, "Okay, good. Forward march, troops."

"We're about seven days from Blue Water." Willow spoke up.

"Then lead on!" Korra smiled.

As Ruby turned to start walking, Korra saw her hesitate and catch herself on a tree. She thought about moving to help her, but just as she had stopped, the rogue started moving again.

* * *

The rogue warmed herself next to the fire as best she could; but it didn't matter how well she bundled herself, she felt the chill and felt herself tremble. No one else, she noted, seemed even mildly uncomfortable.

"How are we working watches?" Phadian asked as he started to ladle some of Mata'Alian's stew into bowls. He had a strong suspicion the base of it came from his stock of insects, but he was too hungry to care and too tired to find anything else.

"I'll take first." Ruby replied.

"Same here." Maple smiled. She reasoned that if Ruby wouldn't tell her what was going on, she would find out for herself. Sooner or later, all secrets gave themselves away.

"Put me on middle." Mogue told them.

"I can take middle, as well." Willow offered.

"Okay. So Korra, Mata'Alian, and I will finish on third." Phadian said.

They ate quickly and quietly, settling in soon after dinner. Ruby, desperately trying to stay awake with her eyes on Willow, began to pace the edges of the camp. It was about halfway through their watch when Maple heard something pushing through the shrubs. The halfling crept over to Ruby and pointed into the darkness just as two tall figures entered the edges of their vision.

They were two ogres, arguing about something in a language she didn't understand. Ruby motioned at Maple to rouse the others and began to creep forward. She could buy the small rogue a few seconds of precious time with cover fire, if it came to that. She moved into the grasses, pulling back on the string of her crossbow, and watched one of them hesitate, and begin to sniff at the air.

She glanced behind her and saw Maple just starting to reach Mata'Alian when the first ogre pulled a club from its belt. Cursing, she took aim and fired at it. Maple, realizing her time as up, yelled into the air, "Wake up!" She turned in time to see Ruby take another shot, and see one of the things charge her.

Phadian was on his feet in an instant, drawing his bow up and pulling the string back. He fired at the second one, pushing it back away from Ruby. The rogue, however, was beginning to feel the effects of her sleep deprivation. She tried to tumble out of the way, and found herself suddenly dizzy and disoriented. She dropped to a knee, trying to get her bearings, and was slammed against the ground by the drop of the ogre's club.

"Leave her!" Phadian shouted, drawing back on another arrow and taking aim at the first ogre. It sneered up at him, charged him, and sunk its fist deep into the cleric's abdomen. He dropped to the ground, gagging and gasping for air.

Willow scrambled up, dagger in hand, and tumbled across the camp. She came up close to Phadian, hooked him under the arms, and hauled him off to the side as Korra found her bow, stood up and gave them enough suppressing fire to force the ogre back.

"Are you hurt?" Willow asked, trying to assess him.

"No," Phadian gasped, retching hard. It was a lie, but if he was still on his feet, he reasoned they should save skill for necessity.

"Understood." Willow replied, standing up and disappearing into the shadows beside him.

Mogue charged in from behind Phadian as the cleric started to find his feet. He struck it hard across the hip with his mace, and the ogre shrieked and swung back wildly. One of its fists caught the Dwarf full across the face and knocked him to the ground. He vaguely heard Ruby yell something at him through the ringing of his ears, and saw the ogre lash out at her through a red haze. The rogue went down hard, rolled back onto her feet, and tried to stand. Dizzy, she caught herself on a tree, gasping for air.

"Fall back!" Mata'Alian yelled at her as he charged.

Ruby took a shuddering breath, and curled tight as she tumbled out and Mata'Alian somersaulted in. In a brutal wave of fury, he struck the ogre across the face and through the abdomen. The creature bellowed and tried to grab him, but Mata'Alian rolled underneath it and came up behind it.

Maple thought she saw an opening as he moved in, a weak spot in the ogre's defenses, and moved to take advantage of it. She reached for her dagger, rolling as she did so, and struck a stone with the edge of her foot. She tumbled well off course, narrowly avoiding falling on her blade by landing flat against her back and winding herself terribly.

"Maple?" Korra shouted back as she took aim at the second ogre and fired.

"I'm fine!" The halfling called as she forced herself up and moved to tumble again. She got underneath the creature, aimed for its Achilles' tendon, and was stomped to the ground. She cried out as the ogre flexed its weight against her, pinning her so hard to the soil she felt her ribcage begin to pop.

Mata'Alian moved to help her only to be smacked across the chest. He went flying back and came down badly on his side. Willow sprang up beside him, yanking her short sword from her belt and assessing her next move. No one was in mortal danger, but no one except herself and Korra had managed to avoid a direct strike. She watched as Mogue was struck against the chest plate of his armor by the second one. He kept his feet, but it was close.

"Korra, I need cover." She told the ranger.

"I've got you." The blonde woman told her, reaching for another arrow.

Mata'Alian was struck down hard in that same moment and Willow charged. Leaping over him, she flipped, came down on her shoulders, rolled off of them, and spun behind the ogre. She sank her dagger into its back, took a step to the right, and stabbed again.

Phadian, still on his knees, managed to gasp out his spell and felt his dented ribs pop back into place. He stood up, pulled back on the string of his bow, and held it. As he watched, Mata'Alian picked himself up and grabbed his mace. Behind him, the cleric saw Ruby stand up, aim to take a shot, and grow pale. She fired, and missed Mata'Alian closely when it sailed over his shoulder. With Willow on top of the first ogre, though, it became a moot point. She was steadily bringing it down, moving around it, ducking under its frantic swings, and dropping it first to its knees, and then to the ground.

Korra fell back to Phadian and they took aim at the first one as Mata'Alian and Mogue scrambled away. They fired in tandem, dropping it with one arrow to the throat and another through the forehead. As it fell backwards, Phadian ran over and began casting. Both Mata'Alian and Mogue were injured, and if Ruby's pallor was any indication, so was she.

He had no sooner finished with the man when Mata'Alian cut open his arm and began rubbing in the blood and dirt of his kill. He knew better than to object and moved onto Mogue. When he was done, he offered the rogue help, but she coldly refused the aid. Reasoning that arguing would be pointless, he bid them goodnight and went back to his pallet.

Ruby, Willow and Mogue took over for the second shift shortly after. Maple probably wasn't even asleep when Willow heard something moving through the brush. She nudged Ruby as a number of cat-like creatures began to converge around the edges of the camp.

"Krenshar..." The rogue trailed off.

Her mother had once made a pact with a pride of them, when she was much younger...In exchange for protection of a particular area, they were provided with regular shipments of fresh meat. She had a good idea of what they wanted...

"Hold!" She cried in Elvish, throwing herself between Mogue and one converging on him. At the edges of the fire, two more sniffed at the bodies of the ogres. "Please, stop!"

"We simply want the body of that man." The head one told her, sniffing in the direction of the cart.

"I implore you," The rogue responded, "Leave his body. I welcome you to the other two bodies."

"Why would we eat what you have already spoiled?" It asked, "You must understand our need as your people did hundreds of years ago. He must be part of the Return."

"Please, understand that his body is of a different race." Ruby told them in frantic Elvish.

"But it is just meat." The creature told her.

"And I agree with you, but my comrade here will fight to give it the kind of burial they require to be part of the Return. I don't want to see him injured and I do not wish to injury one of yours in a fight." The red-haired female continued, "Please, take the other two. I'll drag them out of the camp if you'd like."

The creature snarled up at her, stopped suddenly, and acquiesced, "We will eat them instead. Move back."

Ruby nodded and backtracked, going as far as she could until they asked her to move a sleeping Phadian and Korra.

"I apologize," She told them in supremely polite Elvish, "I can't do that. They must sleep for eight undisturbed hours to gain their spells for the day. And they are our healers. I can't wake them."

The Krenshar looked up at her with curiosity, "Healer?"

"I owe this man my life." Ruby told them, "He takes my hurts away."

The Krenshar looked up at her quizzically and then went back to its meal. Convinced that no harm would come to her and her own, the rogue turned away from them and told Willow and Mogue, "Leave them. They'll finish and be on their way."

They were still eating when Willow roused Phadian, Mata'Alian and Korra for the final watch. Ruby quickly put herself between the Krenshar and her friends, "Don't worry about them. They won't bother you."

"What are they?" Korra asked.

"Krenshar. They're a bit like lions and hyenas, but more intelligent."

"And we shouldn't worry?" The ranger asked.

"I have it handled." Ruby spat back coldly.

Korra narrowed her eyes and said nothing. She waited for the rogue to go take a seat against a far tree before she approached Mata'Alian and told him, "We have to do something about her or she's going to die on us."

The man grunted in assent.

"What do you have for sedatives?"

Mata'Alian produced the jar of salve they had been given for Phadian's wounds. Korra knew it contained belladonna, but in small amounts it was an effective tranquilizer. It was the best they had, so she agreed to its use. Throughout the rest of that quiet night, she would watch Ruby look up, try to get her bearings, and pale. Every time, she or Phadian would move to help only to see the rogue apparently recover.

In the morning, Mata'Alian boiled down a number of herbs and some dried meat that they had. Ruby's bowl, however, he smeared with the salve. She was too tired, too disoriented, to notice him do it, and he was careful to hide it from even Phadian. He reasoned that had she been alright, she would have noticed the tampering with her food. The fact that she hadn't only worried him.

She ate quickly, stumbling when she tried to stand. She caught herself on the edge of the cart, took a breath, and told them they should get going. No one objected, and they started moving again.

It was probably around nine in the morning that Phadian noticed Ruby beginning to slow down. She lagged behind, stopping often to catch her breath and quell the dizziness overtaking her. He tried to keep an eye on her, waiting until she took a knee to allow himself to go help her. By the time he reached her, she was starting to black out.

"Ruby," He told her, slipping one arm under her chest to catch her, "It's alright."

She was already unconscious when Korra walked up beside him. Together, they loaded her into the cart, pulled a blanket over her chest, and let her sleep. Phadian, believing exhaustion had finally taken her, thought nothing of the situation...until the next morning when they found her temperature was quite low.

"It could just be exhaustion." He reasoned, checking her pulse. It was slow and a little weak, but was not unsettling abnormal.

"This could be a problem." Maple said, "None of us know how to care for someone this badly incapacitated."

Phadian did, though. He had been a healer for almost as long as he had been alive. Taking care of one of his own would be nothing new, and he was just about to volunteer when Willow spoke up.

"I do. I'll take care of her."

"Are you sure?" Phadian asked.

"Of course." The girl smiled at him, "She's hardly the worst case I've seen. She'll be in good hands."

"Alright, but if you need help, don't hesitate to ask." The cleric told her.

* * *

On day two, Willow realized something was amiss. Exhaustion would certainly render someone more or less comatose, particularly after three days without rest...but this was...peculiar. Her systems had all slowed down. Respiration was abnormally slow, and her muscle tone was very poor. Despite being well hydrated when she had gone down, Ruby had yet to pass urine. Moreover, she had started to lose primitive neurological function. When Willow tested her pain reflex by pricking her fingertip, Ruby failed to flinch back.

She rubbed her arms and legs down, trying to keep blood flow regular and preserve whatever muscle she could. If Ruby didn't wake up soon, she would have to take more...drastic measures...

* * *

It was the morning of day three that Phadian began to worry. They had yet to encounter anything on their way to the town of Blue Water, but if they did, it would be problematic at best. Ruby had still failed to wake up and he was beginning to grow suspicious. Willow had said nothing to him, but he had a strong feeling she felt the same.

"Is there any chance we can get some water into her?" He asked, noting her lips were beginning to crack and bleed.

"Not without the risk of choking her, or giving her pneumonia." Willow told him.

"How's she doing?" Korra asked with uncharacteristic softness.

"Still unconscious." Willow replied, pulling a blanket over her.

"Well, dinner's ready." The ranger told them as Mata'Alian began laying out the bowls.

She said nothing further until well after everyone went to sleep. She and Mata'Alian were taking the first watch and over the warmth of the fire she finally said, "I think we messed up."

"Potentially." Mata'Alian allowed.

"If she's not awake in the morning, we need to say something." Korra sighed, "Ehlonna help us, she's going to kill us when she wakes up."

She didn't let herself think about what would happen ifshe didn't wake up...

* * *

Willow stood over Ruby and reevaluated her. Things hadn't gotten any worse, but they weren't any better, either...And if the look on Phadian's face was any indication, he was beginning to suspect the same things she was...

"I think we gave her too much." Mata'Alian said as he ladled out the morning stew.

Phadian turned around just as his heart jumped into his throat and said, "What?"

"Look, I asked him to...help her along when I realized she wasn't sleeping." Korra admitted somewhat sheepishly.

"What did you give her?!" Phadian demanded.

Mata'Alian offered him the jar of salve. There was not much left in it...Phadian took it from him and sniffed tentatively at it. He smelled the belladonna, and that worried him. It was a well known sedative, but it didn't take much to depress the nervous system past the point of sleep. More troublesome, he couldn't identify the other components...

"Her symptoms remind me of the effects of blue winnis." He told them.

Willow took the jar from him and dipped her finger into it. She brought it up to her nose, sniffed it, tested the feel of it between two fingers, flicked the tip of her tongue across it.

"It's not blue winnis." She said finally, "It's a pretty potent blend of ingredients. Dragon's bile, black blade, and oil of Tegat. Was this jar full?"

"Yes." Mata'Alian replied.

"That's a dangerous overdose, I can undo some of the damage, but we're going to need a healer well above my caliber." Willow replied, " The effects of the oil of Tegat can be lessened with the same tubers you usually make us for meals, Mata'Alian. There's nothing around this area for another three days that can be used for the belladonna or the dragon's bile, but by then we'll be in Blue Water. Black blade, however, can be rendered harmless with boiled raven's beak that is ground into tea."

"I won't hunt a raven." Mata'Alian said simply.

"Because they are sacred to Thor, I assume?" Mogue responded with a gruff sigh.

"You _did_ this to her!" Maple screamed at him, "You're willing to risk her life for the sake of a bird?!"

Mata'Alian's eyes narrowed and he rose up on his haunches. He growled at Maple, slapped the ground in front of her, and in a show of brutality even Phadian didn't expect, rammed her hard enough to send her to the ground on her back.

"You don't have any idea who I am!" He shouted.

"Back off of her!" Korra screamed, gathering Maple into her lap.

"We don't have time for this!" Phadian told him, "What if we hunt the bird?"

"I will not stand by while you murder a messenger of Thor!" Mata'Alian hollered back.

Willow took a step back and evaluated the situation. Going the way they were, pushing Mata'Alian would only drive him to fight to defend the honor of his code and his god. The fact he had turned on Maple had proven that. Strictly speaking, they wouldn't need to cure Ruby _if _they could get her to a healer who could deal with the peripheral concerns. They just had to keep her alive and in one piece for a few days...

"Forget about the raven's beak. We can work with the tubers alone to at least deal with her low respiration rate. I am going to need help exercising her, though. If we let her just lay here for much longer, she's going to start losing muscle mass." Willow said.

"If you show me what to do, I can help." Maple said.

"Good. Maple, I need you to gently flex her arms and legs," Willow said, bending over the unconscious rogue to demonstrate the proper method, "Ten times every three hours. At that time, I'm going to turn her. We need to prevent bedsores or we'll be dealing with sepsis in short order. We need to cut the amount of time we're on the road. Dehydration is going to become problematic very soon."

"We can eat on the road." Korra volunteered.

"Excellent. Mata'Alian, I need you to boil down one tuber and give me just the liquid."

The man grunted at her, built up the fire, and began skinning one of the starchy roots.

"Maple, get her bracers and shin guards off." Willow said as she began to undo the buckles of the leather corset that comprised the rogue's chest armor. Underneath was a dark brown top short sleeved top and black shorts. It wasn't ideal, considering how rough the fabric was, but it would have to do.

* * *

Her dreams were long, meandering ordeals...snippets of a life that seemed like her own, but strangely disconnected. She watched them from above as a young girl lived out a life almost identical to her's...she felt the fear, the anger, the joy...but she felt them for someone else...For days and days and days, it seemed like she was lost in the miasma of memories. Days in the life of this girl...

* * *

Mogue woke up in the middle of the night. He had been dreaming...dark dreams of mine collapses and lost friends and painful decisions...His own life viewed from a god's perspective, it seemed...

He couldn't make sense of it. Try as he might, he couldn't figure out what had triggered them. He ate the same food as the others, drank the same water, and yet they slept soundly through the night...He knew what he would have to do, but for the moment, he would need to endure.

* * *

Four days later, Willow walked them into the village of Blue Water. They were exhausted, dirty, and demoralized. The fighting certainly had not stopped, and the group seemed very evenly divided along several different arguments. Either way, she didn't have the luxury of trying to mediate for them.

"Where are the temples here?" Phadian asked, wincing at someone elbowed him out of the way.

"Down about three streets in a district of their own. Which one do you want?"

"A temple of Thor!" Mata'Alian called from the back.

It was almost impossible to hear him over the din of the vendors trying to call them over. Between the tavern hags and the traveling carts, it was even harder to get through the streets.

"I apologize," Willow told him, "We don't have a temple of Thor here."

Before the man could object, Phadian asked, "What about a temple of Ehlonna?"

"Of course. It's the first one of the left." She told him as the street ballooned out to accommodate the widening of the street into a shared courtyard between eight or nine different cathedral-like temples and several smaller ones.

"Perfect." Phadian breathed as they pulled up to the temple. They were greeted immediately by a tall man clothed immaculately in the pale greens of Ehlonna.

"Welcome, travelers. How may we assist you?"

"We have a member of our party who was..." Phadian realized there was no way around the word, "Poisoned. We need help."

"Poisoned with what?" He asked, motioning for a number of other clerics to come help them into the temple.

"This mixture. Our herbalist identified the components in it as belladonna, dragon's bile, black blade, and oil of Tegat." He told him, turning over the vial.

"This does not bode well...to discover what is ailing her we will need to boil this down and separate the components. That could take days..." He trailed off as he eyed the pale rogue.

"Couldn't you just...you know...cure the effects of the poison?" Korra asked haltingly.

"Well, of course," The priest responded, "But if it was that simple, why would our brother have not done it?"

Phadian sighed, massaged his temple, and said, "There are...extenuating circumstances."

He resisted the urge to rage at Ehlonna in her own sacred temple for knocking him back in skill and knowledge and decided it was wise not to implicate Korra and Mata'Alian, however guilty they were.

"We will expect a generous donation for this service, brother." The priest said with an air of superiority that irritated even Phadian, but how could he argue? He _should _have been able to handle a matter like that on his own...And as far as the donation went, he had already planned for a very generous one.

"Two hundred gold." The cleric told him.

"Very well. I trust you will seek to hone your skills, brother."

"I shall endeavor to do so." Phadian replied respectfully.

They were shown into a room with one small bed in the center and two more set against each wall. There was water and food already set out and there were two acolytes waiting for them. They helped set Ruby out on the bed and dismissed everyone else.

"What are they doing?" Korra asked.

"Likely, they'll take a flask of blood, bathe her, and settle her in." Phadian replied, "This could take a while."

"It's still early...This is the village the blink dogs took the children to." Korra began, "I think I'd like to see them again." Maybe they would make her feel a bit better...

"I can show you around." Willow told her.

"I'll stay here." Phadian said. When she awoke, he certainly didn't want her to do so in a room full of strangers.

"I'll be back as soon as I can." Mogue told them, leaving with Willow and Korra.

"Alright." Phadian said, sighing to himself. Something told him the next few days would not be easy ones...

* * *

Her dreams stopped abruptly, plunging her into darkness. It was like the thread of her memories had been cut and she was floating, alone, in the blackness. At the very least, it was warm...

TBC


End file.
